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U. S. Battleship " Arkansas " 



SEA POWER AND 
FREEDOM 

A HISTORICAL STUDY 



BY 
GERARD FIENNES 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

BRADLEY ALLEN FISKE 

Rear Admiral, U.S.N. 



Illustrated 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Zhc "Knicfterbocfter presa 
1918 



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Copyright, 1918 

BY 

G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS 



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JUL 17 ib!8 

©CI.A499750 



FOREWORD 

The conquest of the sea is man's greatest triumph. 
The stages of this triumph from the time when the 
savage first took advantage of the floating properties 
of the log, down through all the ages until the present 
day, are shown in moving pictures by this book. Sea 
Power and Freedom depicts mainly the career and 
achievements of the British Navy; because the British 
Navy is the greatest embodiment of sea power that has 
ever been attained, and because it has accompHshed more 
than any other agency, to achieve the conquest^ of the 
sea. The career and achievements of other navies and 
of various merchant marines as well are picturesquely 
shown; and the scenes succeed each other in such rapid 
but well-ordered fashion, that the story runs uninter- 
rupted and harmonious from the first page to the last. 

There is nothing a man fears more naturally and more 
profoundly than the water. While the ordinary man 
remains on land, though subjected to dangers of various 
kinds, he has a feeling of being where he belongs; but 
once in the water, or in a vessel floating on the water, 
fear that his breathing will suddenly be stopped has to 
be subdued by force of will; and it is only after familiar- 
ity with the danger has been attained that the fear is 
entirely overcome. If this feeling exists at the present 
day, when people know that millions of men have sailed 
over the seas during thousands of years, and that the 

iii 



iv FOREWORD 

vessels now constructed are so strong that they can 
defy even hurricanes and typhoons, what must it have 
been in remote times and among savage tribes ! 

Man's long and often painful contest with the sea 
is a story of adventure, labour, skill, courage, science, 
and achievement, which has no parallel in any other 
of man's endeavours. No other achievement has tri- 
umphed over such great obstacles, no other achieve- 
ment has brought about such great results. No forces 
of Nature have assailed man with such success as have 
storms at sea, no forces of Nature have been so bravely 
faced and so successfully overcome. Courage was 
needed to do this; but mere courage accomplished little, 
till Engineering came to its assistance, and gradually 
brought into being those giants of mechanism that now 
cross the ocean with mathematical precision, alike in 
calm and storm. These steamships represent the high- 
est point attained in the contest of men with Nature; 
and the highest development of the steamship is the 
battleship. No other engineering product of equal size 
is so delicate, so manageable, or so perfect ; no watch 
or chronometer, no wireless telegraph apparatus, no as- 
tronomical instrument, is constructed with more scien- 
tific accuracy, or fitted with more delicate care. And 
a battleship is not merely a battleship in the sense that 
it is a kind of ship; because, aside from being a ship, it 
is an organism containing hundreds of mechanism of 
different kinds, each ready to do its part in the work of 
fighting battles. A like remark may be made of the 
other types which make up a navy, such as destroyers, 
battle-cruisers, cruisers of different kinds, and submar- 
ines; — and now a new type of unit is being added, in 
the shape of dirigible balloons, and seaplanes of many 
kinds. 



FOREWORD V 

Sea Power and Freedom shows how the early efforts of 
the seaman started near the shores of rivers and after- 
wards of lakes and seas; how, as the seaman's art 
progressed, and the mechanic arts as well, their craft 
became stronger, and instruments of propulsion and 
navigation were devised . Then the navigator slowly en- 
larged the radius of his trips from shore, then cautiously 
ventured out upon the ocean, and finally launched out 
bravely into the unknown, leaving behind him the solid 
safety of the land. 

For the most part, the efforts of navigators were 
directed then to navigating vessels which were built and 
used for the purposes of trade ; and, for the most part, 
the efforts of navigators are similarly directed now. 
In those days, transportation over the water was under- 
taken for the same reason as was transportation over the 
land — ^for trade. This is the fact now, and the reason 
is the same. In those days, the water separated por- 
tions of the land from other portions, and dwellers in 
one place could usually find in other places certain pro- 
ducts of the soil or handiwork which they did not them- 
selves possess but which they could obtain in exchange 
•for certain products of their own. This was sea com- 
merce in the earliest days, and it is sea commerce now. 
The main difference is in the number and quantity of 
the things produced and traded for. 

There was no supreme law upon the sea then, and 
there is none now. No place upon the sea had a police 
force which protected the lives and property of people 
as is now done in cities ; and so it came about that each 
trading vessel carried with it the laws of its own country, 
and carried weapons with which to protect itself. From 
these armed vessels which carried commerce, there were 
afterwards developed vessels which were armed, but 



vi FOREWORD 

did not cany commerce, their task being to protect 
commerce-carrying vessels. One armed vessel, or 
naval vessel, could protect many merchant vessels on 
a voyage, convoying them from one port to another. 
Thus was the convoy system started. 

It was not until the late Admiral Mahan published 
his epochal book. The Influence oj Sea Power upon His- 
tory, in 1890, that the truth was finally apprehended 
that sea power has had any distinctive influence upon 
history. Such an idea had occurred to many men and 
had appeared sometimes in print; but the book of 
Mahan was so attractive, so complete, and so convincing, 
that it woke men suddenly to a perception of the truth, 
and at the same time to a realisation of the fact that 
this truth was of supreme importance to mankind. 

That men should not have realised the importance to 
any nation of having a large commerce on the sea, with 
sufficient naval force to guard it, can easily be under- 
stood ; because the sea is so far away from the lives and 
experience of most people, that its very existence is hard 
to realise; and it is so associated in some minds with 
stories of suffering and danger, that it has seemed to 
them an agency of evil only. Furthermore, to most 
people, the battle of life is so strenuous, and the neces- 
sity for earning the daily bread is so imperious, that they 
are forced to concern themselves with the things which 
they can see with their eyes at the moment, and hear 
with their ears, and taste with their lips. Few people 
can take a comprehensive view of any subject, so con- 
cerned are they forced to be with its details. Few men 
and women have a clear idea of even the main facts in 
the government of their own cities ! 

In order to look at any subject as a whole, one must 
get high enough above the subject to see all parts of it 



. FOREWORD . J^ii 

unobstructed by other parts; just as one must do, in 
order to look at a city as a whole. 

If one desires to look at sea power in this way, let 
him take an atlas of the world and note how three- 
quarters of the globe is covered with water, while only 
one-quarter is covered with land; and let him also note 
how small a part of even the land is possessed by people 
who have very much to say about the government of 
that land. Let him note how nearly one-quarter of all 
the land in the globe is under the British Government, 
and how most of the rest of it is under the governments 
of France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. 
Let him also note that, in many of the civilised coun- 
tries such as Great Britain, Germany, and Belgium, the 
most important work of the people is in manufacturing; 
while in many countries, such as those in Africa, and in 
most of those of Asia, Australia, and South America, 
comparatively little manufacturing is done, while there 
are millions of square miles of productive soil; and he 
will realise that, while the sea separates countries, the 
ships which sail upon it act like bridges over it, joining 
the countries together, and permitting a world-wide 
commerce. 

But, in one way or another, men always have to pay 
for what they get, and they pay for the benefits of 
ocean commerce by the necessity of guarding that com- 
merce, and by incurring the dangers which result from 
any failure to guard it adequately. The benefits of 
ocean commerce bring about competition among mari- 
time nations to obtain the most they can; and in this 
competition, as in all great competitions, the rewards 
go to him who is the most diligent, the most wise, and 
the most brave. The nation which has been the most 
diUgent, wise, and brave in carrying on commerce on the 



viii FOREWORD 

sea, has gotten the most commerce on the sea, and has 
employed the most complete measures for its protection. 
The sails of her ships and the smoke of her steamers' 
funnels, in both merchant craft and men-of-war, rise 
above all the waters that cover three-quarters of the 
earth, and attest the omnipresence of her sea power. 

Is this omnipresence of sea power an unimportant 
matter? Imagine a city in which there were a hundred 
business firms in competition with each other, but in 
which there was no protection for the goods of any firm 
in transportation through the city, except such protec- 
tion as the employees of that firm could give. In such 
a condition of affairs, the wagons of each firm would 
probably carry armed employees; contests between the 
employees of one firm with those of another firm would 
be possible; and the advantage possessed by the firm 
that had the most and the biggest wagons and the best 
guards would be obvious. Now such a condition is 
much like the condition on the sea, over which each 
nation transports its goods, with no protection except 
that given by its employees. 

To a greater degree than any other nation. Great 
Britain has carried on and has protected commerce on 
all the oceans of the world. The power she has exerted 
has been greater than any other nation ever exerted 
before, and has been so obvious that in recent years it 
has come almost to be accepted as a law. Great power 
is a curse if it is misused, but a blessing if it is well used. 
Fortunately for the world, her power has been exerted 
in the main for the benefit of mankind. As this book 
so clearly and beautifully shows, the sea power of Great 
Britain has been exerted in the main to preserve the 
freedom of the seas, in the sense that it has made the 
sea free to travellers, and has assisted commerce by 



FOREWORD ix 

assuring safety to it, and by bringing about the removal 
of narrow rules and needless and burdensome restric- 
tions. 

This does not mean that all the acts which have es- 
tablished and maintained the sea power of Great Britain 
have been unselfish; but it does mean that, even if the 
British sea policy has been guided by self-interest, that 
self-interest has been intelHgent; and that, even if we 
may justly find fault with some things, we must admit 
that the far-sightedness and broad-mindedness shown 
by Great Britain in the use of the unprecedented power 
given her by her predominance at sea, has no parallel 
in history. 

Possibly, one explanation is that many of the selfish 
acts of men, and perhaps nearly all their cruelties, have 
been because of short-sightedness, a narrow view of life, 
a tendency to exaggerate the importance of things near 
in place or time, and a failure to realise how trivial and 
how fleeting are many of the things men strive for. If 
this be so, large undertakings, involving great bodies of 
men, and extending over continents and seas, tend so to 
broaden men's views and elevate their aims, as to re- 
duce the temptation to gain small personal advantages, 
or gratify petty spites. 

Such an effect seems to be in the mind of the author of 
this book; and for this reason, as well as others, his 
narrative of events and the conclusions which he reaches 
are of vital interest to the world at large, and especially 
to the people of the countries that border on the sea. 

Bradley A. Fiske. 

New York, February 9, 191 8. 



PREFACE 

It was while revising the lectures of which this book 
is chiefly composed, that the vital part played by the 
maritime races in establishing and maintaining the 
freedom of mankind was borne in upon my mind. 
Hence the title of this volume, expressive, as I venture 
to think, of much which is in our thoughts to-day, and 
cheering withal. 

I would ask my readers to remember that I did not 
set out to write a treatise on the relation of Sea Power 
to Freedom, but to prepare a set of lectures on the 
Meaning and Function of Sea Power which should 
interest an audience of Teachers, in whose hands rests 
so great an opportunity for impressing on the minds of 
those who are to follow us the lessons of duty and 
devotion which the history of maritime nations affords. 
The idea of the connection of Sea Power with Freedom 
is only one strain of thought out of many. The stress 
of the time did not admit of extensive revision and re- 
writing. Therefore I hope I may be forgiven a certain 
discursiveness of matter and colloquialism of style less 
proper to the printed page than to the spoken word. 

The history of the world marches in orderly sequence. 
No study convinces one so clearly of this fact in the 
case of our own country as the study of Sea Power. 
Approached from this standpoint, the events of the 
ages show one steady stream of development, rich with 
purpose and promise. In the issue of to-day, Great 



xii PREFACE 

Britain, her children oversea, and the United States 
could not have been but where they are, without being 
false to their past and prodigal of their future. Nor 
can they, without certain disaster, sheathe the sword 
till all that for which they are fighting is fully won. 
" Here stand we. We can no other. " 

Those acquainted with the writings of Admiral 
Mahan will be at no loss to trace their influence in the 
following pages. I can hope for nothing better than 
that this book may induce others at present unfamiliar 
with those writings to study them at first hand, and 
also the no less valuable works of Sir John Knox 
Laughton, Sir Julian Corbet, and other British naval 
writers of far deeper learning and greater authority 
than I can pretend to. I must also acknowledge the 
debt I owe to Mr. E. Hallam Moorhouse for his in- 
valuable volume, Letters of the English Seamen; to Mr. 
Archibald Hurd, most painstaking of naval writers, 
and Mr. Henry Castle for the information supplied by 
their German Sea Power : Its Rise, Progress, and Eco- 
nomic Basis; to Miss Alethea Wiel's engrossing study of 
The Navy of Venice, and to Mr. Ernest Law's England's 
First Great War Minister, a book which casts light on 
a period of English history much overlaid by prejudice. 
For the early history of Sea Power, I derived great 
help from The Historian's History of the World, published 
by the Times. 

Gerard Fiennes. 



CONTENTS 



I. — Introductory .... 
II. — Sea Power in the Ancient World 
III.— "A Place Where Two Seas Meet" 
IV. — The Making of England 
V. — The Mediterranean in the Middle Ages 
VI. — The Age of Discovery . 
VII. — The Mastery to Britain 
VIII. — Pride and a Fall . 
IX. — Sea Power Saves Europe 
X. — The Restorer of Paths 
XI. — The Challenge 
XII. — The Valley of Decision 
XIII. — The Main Fleets . 
XIV. — Conclusion 
Index 



I 

19 
42 
61 

85 
108 

134 
162 
191 
220 

248 

309 
333 
357 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



U. S. Battleship "Arkansas" . . Frontispiece 

The Hereford Map of the World. 

Map of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times 

Statue of Alfred the Great at Winchester 

The Baltic Fleet Leaving Spithead 

The Capture of an Algerine Corsair 

" The Duke OF Wellington " 

Henry VIII. Embarking at Dover 

The Man-of-War "Great Harry" 

The Battle of Lepanto 

A Caravel of the Fifteenth Century 

Columbus's Caravels . . 

A Galleon of the Fifteenth Century 

A Galley of the Sixteenth Century 

A Galley Running before the Wind . 

An Admiral's Galley. 

A Galleass of the Seventeenth Century 

A Galleass 126 



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XVI 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 1588 . 

Edward Lord Hawke, Admiral of the Fleet 

Robert Blake, General and Admiral of the 
Parliament Forces ..... 

The Bombardment of Algiers .... 

Engagement between the English and Dutch 
Fleets at the Mouth of the Thames, 1666 

The Battle of Quiberon Bay, November 20, 1759 

Admiral Duncan's Victory over the Dutch 
Fleet ..... 



128 




146 


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146 


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148 


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152 


V 


180 


J 



The Battle of the Nile . 

Naval Battle Won by the Knights of 
Jean ..... 

The British Destroyer "Foam" . 

A British " Dreadnought " . 

U. S. Battleship "Nebraska" 

Sir John Jellicoe 

Lord Fisher .... 



Saint 



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/ 
/ 

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300 ^ 
304 / 

304 v/ 



194 



200 



232 



272 
272 



SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 



Sea Power and Freedom 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

As the Great War has taken its course, from August, 
1914, when Great Britain and her Allies, aroused from 
their dreams of peace, stood up all unprepared, against 
the Central Empires which had made them ready for 
battle, till the time when, at last, they are bringing 
their full might to bear, it has become more and more 
evident that the bed-rock on which the hope of victory 
rests is sea power. The events of the years just past 
have taught us more of the meaning of the word than 
has been popularly understood, at least since Trafalgar. 
We have seen — or rather we have not seen, save with 
the eye of faith — the Grand Fleet standing ever on 
guard in "the Northern mists," and we have realised, 
more or less, that, so long as it retains what is known 
as the "Command of the Sea," we cannot be invaded. 
The war is being fought on other soil than that of 
Great Britain by reason of the predominance of that 
Grand Fleet. Great armies have been transported, 
not only across the Channel, but from the uttermost 
parts of the earth, with the loss of scarce a man or a 

I 



2 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

pound of stores, again because the Grand Fleet has 
"banged, barred, and bolted" the gates of the world 
against the Germans and their allies. We have 
learned that the reason why we suffer — but not un- 
bearably — from high prices is that the demands upon 
our mercantile marine and the depredations of the "U " 
boats have caused a scarcity of tonnage for the carry- 
ing of trade. We have been taught, by the logic of 
events, that, for us, security and prosperity rest upon 
the power to use the sea. 

Sea power means that, and it means nothing more 
— save the corollary: the power to deny the use of the 
sea to the enemy in time of war. This definition should 
be kept clearly in mind. It is all-important to what 
is to follow. The military navy is a necessary instru- 
ment of sea power, since it is on the military navy that 
a maritime State must rely to "impeach" the enemy, 
as the Elizabethans said, in his use of the sea-routes. 
But, in itself, it is only a part, though a most important 
part of the whole. The sea has no owner. It has 
been compared to a wide common, free to the use of 
all mankind. The right of ownership only begins 
within the curtilage of the house, so to speak : with the 
carriage-drive, the estuaries of the rivers and the 
harbours. Even within territorial waters — the much- 
quoted three-mile limit — there is no right of possession 
until low water-mark is reached. It follows, then, that 
sea power is not the monopoly of any one nation. All 
nations who have the requisite natural facilities may 
possess it in measure. Conceivably, all nations might 
possess it in an equal degree, so long as they remain 
at peace with one another. 

In effect, however, though the right of all be equal, 
the possession of sea power is limited by natiural con- 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

ditions. Switzerland has the same right as Britain 
to use the sea, but she has no more the power than has 
♦a paralysed man the power to cross the common. All 
she needs from over-sea must be brought her in the 
ships of other nations. The first condition of sea 
power is, obviously, access to the sea: favourable 
geographical position, an easily accessible coast, secure 
and commodious harbours. Thus baldly stated, it 
appears a mere platitude to enunciate this condition. 
But there are many degrees of ability and disability, 
ranging between Switzerland, cut off entirely from 
access to the sea, and Britain or Japan, with the sea 
surrounding them, and ports, always possible of access, 
on all their coasts. There is Russia, for instance, with 
her Baltic ports sealed for nearly half the year by ice, 
and Rumania, whose only approach to the outer seas 
is through the Dardanelles, the control of which is 
destined for ever to rest in the hands of another Power. 
Or, again, there is Belgium, with her great port of 
Antwerp situated on a river, the mouths of which are 
controlled by Holland. The gradations are endless; 
but the instances given show that, in peace as well as 
in war, geographical position, apart from actual exclu- 
sion from the shore, is the first and most important 
factor in the incidence of sea power. 

Next in importance comes the need of the nation 
for over-sea commerce. So far as geographical posi- 
tion is concerned, France and Spain are but little less 
favourably situated than Great Britain. Yet neither 
of these countries has succeeded in maintaining a 
really developed sea power. Why? 

The answer is partly to be found in the condition 
stated above. The first thing necessary to the life of 
man is eatables. When a nation produces at home all, 



4 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

or almost all, it requires in the way of eatables; when 
its soil is the true mother of the people; when they 
have, perhaps, a surplus of corn and wine and oil to 
barter for manufactures, or for luxuries of other kinds, 
they do not take that surplus in their own ships, seek- 
ing a market among the hungry. Just as, when Egypt 
was in plenty and there was scarcity outside the 
borders, Joseph hoarded the produce of the fat years 
and the patriarchs went down into Egypt to buy food 
for the famine of their houses, so the nation similarly 
situated nowadays will say, in effect, to the world: 
"If you wish to partake of our superfluity, come down 
in your ships and fetch it, and bring with you your 
goods in exchange." The importing country is not, 
of course, necessarily a poor country, or short of re- 
sources. That could not be said of Britain with her 
coal and iron and immense industries, nor of Germany. 
But it is true, all through history, that the nations 
which have had to exchange their products for food- 
stuffs have been the great Sea Powers. Phoenicia, 
Greece, Venice, Holland, Britain stand on the one 
hand; ancient Egypt, Babylonia, France, and the 
United States stand on the other. The instance of 
the United States is peculiarly instructive, for, until 
she began to develop her natural resources in the great 
lands of the West, she was a great Sea Power, with a 
mercantile marine at one time only second to that of 
Great Britain. Now she is one of the greatest export- 
ing countries in the world, but, in comparison with 
the bulk of her trade, her mercantile marine is insigni- 
ficant. As regards this country, which, of course, 
has a great agriculture, and, in early times, was at 
least self-supporting, it is interesting to note that her 
sea commerce was small, and that she relied on Vene- 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

tian and Hanseatic ships to bring her what she required 
from abroad — chiefly articles of luxury — up to Tudor 
times. Why was there then a change, and why did 
she become a maritime State? 

Partly, no doubt, the change was due to the fostering 
care of her kings. Partly it was due to the discovery 
of America and of the passage round the Cape, which, 
in the long run, ruined Venice. But, in addition to 
these political and external causes, it may be remem- 
bered that during the fourteenth century the popula- 
tion was reduced to one-half by the Black Death, the 
whole system of villenage, on which agriculture de- 
pended, was overthrown, and that large tracts of land 
went out of cultivation, while, during almost the whole 
of the fifteenth, the land was distracted and recovery 
retarded by the troubles leading up to and ensuing 
upon the Wars of the Roses. These events upset the 
balance between town and country and compelled 
the importation of necessaries. Much has been attri- 
buted to the Black Death; but its possible effect upon 
our sea power has been overlooked by historians. 
Were the latter accustomed to pay much heed to 
maritime matters, their silence might condemn the 
conjecture as of little value. But it is an extraordinary 
fact that, with the exception of the few who specialise 
in the subject, our historians seem oblivious of the 
immense effect which the sea and the use thereof have 
had on the making of Britain and her history. 

Next in order of the factors which go to building 
up sea power must be placed the character and habits 
of the people, a factor which depends, in part at least, 
on the condition just discussed. The need of food 
first drives men to seek the harvest of the sea, and, 
thus, fisheries are invariably the nurseries of mariners. 



6 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

But also it is to be noticed that the great seafaring 
peoples have been a stiff-necked breed, little wont to 
accept either foreign domination or tyrannical govern- 
ment at home. The docile subjects of the Pharaohs, 
the Chaldean and Persian kings, of Louis XIV., and the 
Spanish monarchy were never imbued with the true 
sea spirit, although, from time to time, some of them 
have shone as soldiers at sea. The temperament 
which endures personal rule is lacking in initiative 
and self-reliance. It was widely different with the 
Phoenicians, the Athenians, the Norsemen, the Vene- 
tians, the Dutch, and the English. The restless mind, 
the independent and individualistic spirit with its love 
of adventure and desire for gain, have made of these 
true seafaring peoples, when once it was fairly aroused. 
True, the awakening may take centuries. It has been 
noted that the English people of the Middle Ages 
were of almost Oriental docility save for the turbulent 
Normans among them. But, in those centuries, 
their dwelling-place was wide enough for them, and 
the conditions of life, for all but the villeins and serfs, 
at any rate, easy. They had not yet begun to find 
the incentive to use the sea. The French are a people 
with many of the qualities which go to make a great 
colonising and seafaring nation. But the true maritime 
spirit has never yet come to life in the people as a 
whole. No lands have offered them a fairer prospect 
than sunny France. They have always had elbow- 
room and plenty, and, to the detriment of the national 
life, they take care that there are never too many 
Frenchmen for the soil of France. They are a thrifty 
and home-loving nation. They lack the incentive to 
seek their fortunes over-seas, or, if they do, they look 
back with yearning and a determination to return to 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

their native land. They have developed at least a 
theoretical passion for political freedom, and, in these 
latter years, seem to have acquired a practical 
capacity for self-government. But the causes noted 
above continue to operate to prevent the growth of 
the maritime and colonising spirit. 

It will be gathered that what is meant by sea power 
is by no means confined to the military navy. The 
division of the maritime strength of a country into 
fighting and mercantile ships is, indeed, a plant of 
comparatively recent growth. After fishing, the 
earHest development of sea power was piracy. No 
need to boggle at the word. Piracy and empiricism 
have both the same derivation, though the pirate is 
regarded as a bloodthirsty ruffian and the empiric, 
at worst, as a harmless lunatic. They are both people 
who try experiments, discoverers. In Elizabethan 
times, pirates were known by the more endearing 
name of merchant, or even gentlemen, adventurers. 

Regard the Phoenicians who first fared forth with 
their freights to Cyprus and, later, to Tarshish and 
beyond, seeking copper and tin. They went armed, 
for they knew not whom or what they might meet. 
They were not perhaps too nice in their methods of 
barter with the strangers they met in the lands they 
sought. It has not infrequently happened since that 
the simple savage has held views on the subject of the 
comparative value of copra and beads which have 
led to a difference of opinion between him and the 
seafaring man, who has felt himself obliged to chastise 
him for the benefit of his commercial morals. 

But there was no law on the sea, or in the lands 
beyond, to protect these early voyagers. Their safety 
and their success depended on the arms they carried 



8 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

and their ability to use them. When the Greeks in 
turn sought the riches of Spain, the Phoenicians fought 
the Greeks at sea, though here was no war between 
Phoenicia and Hellas, but trading relations continued. 
Merchants and merchantmen went armed for protec- 
tion, but their object was not war but wealth. It 
was the same with the "adventurers" of our own land, 
though they had the added joy of striking a blow for 
the Protestant cause by snapping their fingers at the 
King of Spain and the Bull of Alexander VI, Mer- 
diantmen went armed at least down to the Peace of 
1815, and many are the instances in the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries of combats and captures at 
sea while peace still nominally reigned between the 
home governments. That there was — perhaps still 
is — no law on the sea save that of the States which 
use it is shown by the fact that, until quite recently, 
every crime committed on the high seas and cognisable 
by the British Courts was deemed to have been com- 
mitted "in the County of Middlesex," and was triable 
at the Old Bailey alone. 

That special types of ships fitted for war were early 
evolved by the maritime nations does not alter the 
case, nor that certain States which were not strictly 
speaking maritime built navies for the special purpose 
of war. It is in the main true that the military navy, 
so far from constituting the substance of sea power, 
is rather its accident, and that the need to possess the 
military "command of the sea" is exactly proportioned 
to the dependence of a State on sea communications 
for its wealth and subsistence. To take the instance 
nearest at hand: If Germany were at war with us 
alone,! [she could still draw her necessary supplies of food 
from the sources whence she, in the main, draws them 



INTRODUCTORY 9 

in time of peace: wheat and rye from Russia and 
Rumania, dairy produce and meat from Holland, 
Denmark, France, Italy, Switzerland, and so forth. 
She could draw raw materials for her industries from 
all the ports of Europe. She would have lost nothing 
but the power to carry these things in her own ships 
— a severe economic loss, but not fatal. As it is, 
she has, by her own act, turned herself into an island. 
She has failed to gain the advantage of the sea power 
for which she strove, and she has lost that of her con- 
tinental position. "Bitter is the need," not only of 
a strong German navy, but of one strong enough to 
keep open her sea communications, and this all the 
millions she has lavished have failed to provide. Her 
sea power for the time being has vanished, for she has 
lost the power to use the sea. With the impotence 
of her battle-fleet, there has disappeared her great 
mercantile marine. 

The real separation between the functions of a 
military navy and a merchant fleet came with the 
introduction of cannon. The trader desired, of course, 
to devote all the space he could to cargo-carrying. He 
did not wish to carry a larger crew than was needed 
to work the ship. But guns and ammunition are 
bulky and heavy, and extra men are required to fight 
the guns. So the State took over certain functions 
necessary to trade by sea, both in peace and war. 
The policing of the trade routes, exploration, charting, 
lighting, the establishment of bases of supply and re- 
freshment and their protection, were all essentials, 
and were all made the function of the military navy. 
Hence it comes about that, quite apart from the de- 
fence of the shores from invasion and the necessity 
to transport land forces by sea, which was the earliest 



10 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

purpose served by the construction of special war- 
vessels, the possession of a large mercantile marine 
involves the establishment and the upkeep of a military 
force. But the essence of sea power must still be looked 
for in the use of the sea as a means of peaceful inter- 
course and commerce between nations. 

The earliest known civilisations established them- 
selves on the seashore, or on the alluvial plains stretch- 
ing along the course of mighty rivers. Behind lay 
the hills or the desert; in front the sea. As popu- 
lation and wealth increased, the place where they 
dwelt became too strait for nomadic life. There 
was strife between the herdsmen, as between those of 
Abraham and Lot, for the most fertile and well-watered 
stretches of pasture. The strongest ceased to wander 
and settled themselves permanently on these. Man 
took to agriculture, then to dwelling in cities, to arts 
and crafts, to exchange and barter. But, directly you 
reach that stage, means of transport and communica- 
tion become all important. The further you go from 
sea-level the more difficult does transport become. 
There were no roads, nor wheeled vehicles. But the 
rivers provided an inclined plane, up and down which 
goods might easily be transported, once the principle 
of buoyancy was understood. No doubt that elemen- 
tary principle was mastered by our arboreal ancestors, 
who floated down stream on a tree trunk, wet but safe. 
From the trunk to the dug-out, or to the raft, made 
by lashing several trunks together, was an easy step; 
to fashion frames and knees and to cover them with 
planks or hides, and thus to form a hollow, cargo- 
bearing ship was less elementary, but not beyond the 
powers of rude races of mankind, as the records show. 
When means of propulsion by pole, paddle, oar, and 



INTRODUCTORY ii 

eventually sail, had been devised, an easy means to 
transport large weights of merchandise on the broad 
bosom of the Nile or the Tigris and Euphrates was at 
the disposal of man. As a matter of fact, from very 
early days the produce of Armenia was transported 
to Babylon on rafts which floated down the Euphrates 
and were sold at the end of the journey to save the 
labour and expense of poling or towing them up stream 
again. The same system prevails to-day. 

It is, however, to the man in the coracle or dug-out 
that we must look for the first adventurer who put to 
sea from the mouth of the river where lay his fishing- 
ground. Perhaps he went to see what was round the 
next promontory, and there found a fishing village 
similar to his own, with the inhabitants of which he 
entered into relations, if they did not obey the time- 
honoured advice to " 'eave 'arf a brick" at the stranger. 
Perhaps ahead of him he saw "summer isles of Eden, 
lying in dark purple spheres of sea," as one sees St. 
Honorat and St. Marguerite from Cannes, with the 
snowy mountains of Corsica behind them. Greatly 
daring, the voyager fared forth and crossed the strait, 
to find himself the first colonist. So traffic, demand- 
ing ever larger craft, would be established between 
himself and those who followed him and their mother 
city, and ever their eyes would turn to other islands 
lying yet further beyond. Consider the early history 
of Cyprus, and all that it has meant to the world. 
Here East and West first came into contact. The 
Phoenician, creeping along the coast of Syria to the 
mouth of the Orontes, saw Cape Andrea lift above the 
sea-rim and set his sail for it. The Greek, coasting 
along the shores of the Levant, saw it also. There 
they met, Aryan and Semite, and there they traded 



12 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

copper, all important in the Bronze age. Thence 
Cadmus carried letters to Greece and there Ashtoreth 
of the Zidonians rose from the waves, Aphrodite 
Anadyomene of the Hellenes. 

Adventures by individuals apart, however, what 
was it which first drove man to the sea? He had no 
knov/ledge of the lands which lay beyond. His pro- 
gress, creeping from point to point, was slow and 
fraught with peril. Yet he dared the mysterious forces 
of Nature, leaving security and, perchance, ease behind 
him. First and foremost, no doubt, necessity, the res 
angusta domi. Driven by the stronger, or the more 
cunning, from the fat pastures, a tribe of refugees, 
such as the Phoenicians or the Venetians, would take 
refuge in some undesired spot, protected by the ranges 
of Libanus and Anti-Libanus or by the swamps and 
lagoons of Venetia, and would there learn the hardi- 
hood and skill which, in process of time, enabled them 
to outstrip the oppressor in wealth or in power or in 
both. Or, again, the trouble might not be external, 
but internal. There might be those who felt them- 
selves evil intreated of tyrants; those to whom the 
right of private judgment, so passionately claimed by 
some races, our own among others, was denied. Or 
the seafarers might themselves be fiery, turbulent 
spirits who would not submit to the reign of law. For 
law, be it remembered, is the compromise of individual 
right which man has found to be necessary if he is to 
live in a society. We still talk of the right of con- 
quest as between nations. But it is obvious that, if 
conquest is admitted as a right between individuals, 
our lives would be one continual turmoil and strife. 
Man is therefore called upon to abandon his in- 
dividual right when it impinges upon the right of his 



INTRODUCTORY 13 

neighbour, and, if question arises, to submit the matter 
to judgment. 

Since all law needs force behind it, it has frequently 
been found the most practicable plan to invest the 
sole right of plunder in the strongest or shrewdest 
member of the community, on condition that he allows 
no one to plunder but himself. Or he, being the 
stronger, has seized that power. Hence arose tyrants, 
and hence arose the necessity for those who could 
not, or would not, submit to betake themselves else- 
where. Aut disce, aut discede. Manet sors tertia, 
ccBdi. 

There are two main refuges for the persecuted and 
the lawless: the hills and the sea. The weaker breeds 
have, as a rule, taken to the hills, where, in the hard 
school of adversity, they have learned hardihood, and 
in time have avenged themselves upon the more 
prosperous and slothful dwellers of the plain. As the 
poet sings: 

" The mountain sheep are sweeter, 
But the valley sheep are fatter. 
We therefore deemed it meeter 
To carry off the latter." 

Those who took to the sea have been, for the most part, 
the stronger, the fiercer, the more adventurous. For 
the wrath of Nature is more terrible than the wrath of 
man. They chose the better part. The way of the 
sea leads to wealth as well as liberty; the way of the 
hills, to liberty indeed, but seldom to wealth. 

We shall see as we proceed that the motives which 
have led man to take to the sea have had an immense 
influence on the future of the races from which they 
have sprung. The Phoenicians, the Venetians, and the 



14 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Dutch are instances of peoples driven to seafaring and 
colonisation by the narrow resources of the lands in 
which they dwelt, and the pressure of stronger races 
behind them. Although, in two cases out of three, the 
possession of colonies eventually overtaxed the strength 
of the mother State, and, in the case of Venice, the 
colonists made themselves fiercely hated by the peoples 
among whom they dwelt, yet, with all three, the exiled 
branches remained faithful to the parent stem, and 
trade, at any rate, did "follow the flag." The same 
cannot be said of the colonies of the Hellenic States. 
Lack of subsistence, it is true, drove many of the 
colonists to seek distant homes, and they took Greek 
customs, Greek art, and Greek culture with them. But 
the causes of their departure were, in many cases, 
political also, and the colonists were of little aid to 
Hellas in her struggles with the barbarian invaders; 
indeed, they were frequently themselves to be counted 
among her enemies. No Greek city, with the possible 
exception of Corinth, became a great mart of the world's 
merchandise through the energies of its sons as did the 
Phoenician cities through those of the Carthaginians 
and the settlers in Spain. The Greeks were essen- 
tially without sense of solidarity, factious and lacking 
in national spirit, except under stress of overwhelming 
danger and for short periods of time. Most of the 
Ionian colonies of Asia Minor marched under the 
banner of Xerxes to the conquest of Greece. Take 
again the case of the Northmen, whether Saxons, 
Danes, or Norse. They planted themselves in England 
and in Normandy; they settled and became English 
or Norman. But they cut themselves off completely 
from Scandinavia. They ceased absolutely to belong 
to the nations from which they sprang. Our own 



INTRODUCTORY 15 

case is particularly instructive, seeing that those who 
left our shores to escape political or religious persecu- 
tion in the long run broke away, while those who went 
to distant lands to seek fortune, neglected, it may be, 
but left free in conscience and in their civil rights, 
protected by the long arm of British sea power without 
money and without price, are loyal to the Crown and 
Blood, as they are proving more magnificently than 
our warmest hopes have whispered to us. The sea 
has proved, not a barrier, but the strongest link of 
union. And, as we have every reason to believe, the 
best is yet to be. It is an idea of Empire quite new to 
the world, this free bond between free peoples, in which 
the Mother Country exacts no tribute and asks no 
special privileges. It is the latest and completest 
product of sea power in its widest sense: born of its 
spirit, nurtured by its genius. It will, of course, be 
one of the principal aims of this volume to inquire 
how the Ocean Empire was made and what are the 
conditions under which it exists. It is an almost 
miraculous story, and not the least marvellous part 
of it is that many of its chroniclers have almost seemed 
to miss the chief force on which it depends, so silent 
and invisible is it in its working. 

The British boy, taught history in the schools, can 
name five British victories on land to every three at 
sea. Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt; Blenheim, Ramillies, 
Oudenarde; Minden, Dettingen, Corunna, Vimiera, 
Albuera, Badajoz, Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria, 
Waterloo, Alma, Inkerman, Balaklava, and so on: 
these are all household words. On the naval side, he 
would perhaps name Sluys (probably knowing no more 
about it than that the Court Fool of the King of France 
announced it to his master by saying: "What cowards 



i6 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

these English are ! They had not the cotirage to jump 
overboard hke the French!"), the defeat of the Ar- 
mada, La Hogue, Quiberon Bay, The Saints, the 
Glorious First of June, Camperdown, St. Vincent, The 
Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. Nineteen victories 
by land to eleven at sea. The proportion is a strange 
one for the greatest Sea Power in the world's history. 
But sea power has its perfect work in the slow and 
silent pressure it brings to bear, by denying to the 
enemy freedom of action while maintaining that 
freedom for itself and its allies, rather than in the 
actual clash of arms. It resembles in its working the 
serpents which arose out of the sea at Tenedos and 
wound themselves round the limbs of Laocoon and his 
sons. The Germans know — most painfully — this im- 
palpable, impermeable force which surrounds the war- 
ring armies on the Continent and constrains them to 
its will. Belgium was overrun, beaten, crushed; yet 
Belgium lives. Her army has been refitted by the 
Power which has been untouched by the invader and 
has the resources of the world at its back. Its flank 
is secured by the British Navy, which has the control 
of the North Sea and has the dunes under its guns. 
Or take the case of Serbia. A rabble of starved and 
beaten men straggled down to the coast of the Adriatic 
in the autumn of 191 5. They were rescued by sea 
power as the army of Sir John Moore was rescued 
after the retreat to Corunna, and was brought back to 
Salonika, equipped and reorganised, to aid in recovering 
the freedom of their native land. Take the Russians 
in France or at Salonika, brought all the way round 
from Vladivostok. Take the marvellous odyssey of 
the British armoured cars, which were landed at 
Archangel, and fought on the frontiers of Persia. 



INTRODUCTORY 17 

These are but a few telling incidents. They do not 
show a tenth part of what sea power is accomplishing 
to derange the plans of the enemy, even in parts remote 
from the sea. That will be dealt with in its proper 
place. But they serve to illustrate the immediate 
point: that it is not amid the roar of the guns of 
Jutland Bank that the truest and most vital workings 
of sea power are to be sought. It is, rather, in the 
use of sea communications to succour and support 
the weaker combatants and to force the enemy to turn 
from his purpose and to strike his blows in the air. 
An army which has the free use of the sea is ever an 
elusive foe against whom it is almost impossible to seek 
a decision, unless he himself is prepared to welcome 
it. Besides which, there is always economic pressure 
working inexorably to derange his military plans and 
force him to adventures beyond his strength. 

"He that commands the sea," said Bacon, "hath 
great liberty to take as much or as little of the war as 
he will." That is unquestionably true, and we shall 
find instances, in the histories of Phoenicia, of Greece, 
of Venice, and of Britain, in which full advantage has 
been taken of this liberty. Indeed,Japan is exercising 
it now, in so far as she commands the sea in her own 
region of the world. To our credit be it said that, in 
the great struggle of to-day we are using our liberty 
to take as much of the war as we can. 

The history of sea power to the Briton is the history 
of the evolution of the British nation and Empire. 
Towards that culmination all else moves. But before 
tracing the development of our race it is necessary to 
show something of the general working of sea power in 
the ancient world and of the gradual process by which 
maritime ascendency crystallised round these islands. 



i8 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

If the story is one rather of war than of peace, that is 
no contradiction of the statement made above that 
sea power is not primarily an affair of the miHtary 
navy. Just as the great sea battles are the events on 
which the imagination seizes in war-time, rather than 
upon the silent pressure of the Navy, which is of even 
greater moment, but which cannot easily be described 
in words, so war is the touchstone by which sea power 
is brought to the test. The use of the sea being its 
main end, the ability to use it depends on the ability 
to keep the highway clear in times of crisis. But 
let it never be forgotten that, since the British Navy 
won first place in the world, it has saved more wars 
than it has fought. It has been the instrument of 
peace, of law, and of liberty, keeping open the highway 
of the sea so that "the wayfaring men, though fools, 
shall not err therein." In this, we claim, it plays its 
destined part in promoting the welfare of mankind. 



CHAPTER II 

SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 

To the ancient Greeks, from whom, apart from the 
Scriptures and the monuments of Egypt and Assyria, 
our knowledge of antiquity is almost wholly derived, 
the Mediterranean was the centre of the CEcumene, 
or habitable world. All the known races of mankind 
dwelt round its shores or to the east of it, as far as 
the Persian Gulf and the shores of the Black Sea and 
the Caspian. The Balkans and the Alps formed its 
northern boundary; the Pillars of Herakles, set, accord- 
ing to the Phoenician legend, by Melkarth on either 
side of the Straits of Gibraltar, the western. West 
of these again, in the golden sea, which, struck by the 
setting sun, gave forth the sound of a harp-string, 
were the Islands of the Blest, the fabled Atlantis, the 
land where Hesperides guarded their golden fruit. 
To the south, the weary Titan upheld the roof of the 
world. To the north dwelt the Cimmerians in outer 
darkness, the Lsestrygons in endless day, and the happy 
Hyperboreans in the "dancing places of the dawn." 
Outside all these, Okeanus flowed endlessly round 
the disc of the world. Such was the conception of 
geography and ethnography at the date of Homer. 
But the bounds of the CEcumene were ever being 
pushed further from the centre as knowledge grew 
with exploration. 

19 



20 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

It is then, among the races living round the Medi- 
terranean that great and mighty empires developed, 
advanced in many respects in civilisation to a degree 
which man has hardly yet surpassed. How much of 
their greatness did they owe to sea power? How much 
did it contribute to their upbuilding; how much to 
the fall of those which did not possess it, or, having 
possessed it, lost it? The question is asked of the 
history of Egypt, of Chaldea, of Phoenicia, Persia, 
Greece, Carthage, and Rome, from about the year 2000 
B.C. to the foundation of the Empire of the Caesars 
at Actium. 

The first two great Empires of the world were river- 
ain: Chaldea, depending on the Euphrates and the 
Tigris, and Egypt on the Nile. They were self-sup- 
porting in the necessaries of life; their capitals were 
situated on rich alluvial plains; the rivers afforded 
convenient inclined planes for transport and supply. 
Thus neither of them experienced the first and most 
cogent impulse for the development of sea power, and, 
in fact, neither of them developed it to any great extent; 
the Chaldeans, so far as we can tell, not at all. There 
are representations of galleys and even of naval en- 
gagements to be found on the bas-reliefs; but the 
ships are not Assyrian or Babylonian ships, but those 
of some ally, hired for the purpose of fighting, or of 
transporting Chaldean soldiers. The wares of Chaldea 
were carried overland to the Mediterranean, or along 
the great trade route by the oasis of Palmyra, thence 
down through Syria, and thus to Egypt. The Midian- 
ites to w^hom Joseph was sold were, perhaps, engaged 
on such a journey. There was no reason to think that 
Chaldean ships sailed the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean, 
though, as we shall see, the Egyptians occasionally 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 21 

made expeditions there, and the Phoenicians thought 
it worth while to maintain fleets in the Gulf of Akaba, 
in order to fetch the treasures of Ophir and Punt for 
the magnificent Solomon, and may, perhaps, have 
journeyed as far south as Taprobane, or Ceylon, It has 
been conjectured that the failure of the Chaldeans 
to use the sea was due to the lack of suitable woods for 
ship-building. This, however, can hardly have been 
the case, since they had the resources of Armenia 
behind them and easy transport by water. The reason 
must be looked for in the absence of necessity and the 
richness of the more temperate part of their dominions, 
which kept the people from seeking the seacoast. If 
the Chaldeans had established a sea power based on 
the Persian Gulf; if they had been the bold and hardy 
sailors the Phoenicians were, the history of the world 
might have been fundamentally different. They would 
have sailed south and east, and have established inter- 
course with the peoples of India, perhaps even of China. 
The course of empire might well have taken its way 
eastwards instead of westwards. 

So also it might if the Egyptians had developed into 
a maritime people. With fleets in the Mediterranean 
and in the Red Sea, they would have brought the 
eastern and the western world into contact many hun- 
dreds of years before that contact actually occurred. 
Without any doubt they would have constructed the 
Suez Canal — mere child's play to the builders of the 
Pyramids — and, securely seated on their two seas, 
they must have been the rulers of the world, which 
might never have had occasion to look elsewhere 
for a master. But the Pharaohs developed no great 
measure of sea power. From time to time, some ruler, 
more ambitious or more far-seeing than the rest, main- 



22 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

tained a fleet in the Mediterranean or the Red Sea, 
but these were all comparatively small achievements 
for a people so favourably situated for sea trade and 
endowed with so high a measure of constructive skill. 
The ancient Egyptians were never a seafaring people. 
When the Phoenicians and the Greeks had developed 
their civilisation sufficiently to engage in maritime 
industry, the Egyptians resigned their pretensions to 
sea power altogether and were content to make use 
of foreign shipping for their trade. In this they fol- 
lowed the universal rule already laid down, that the 
peoples which have a surplus of the necessaries of life 
to dispose of make those who want that surplus come 
and fetch it, bringing with them the luxuries and super- 
fluities which the favoured nation desires. Yet ancient 
Egypt was destined to fall by sea power, and she has 
ever since been the prize of that nation which had the 
supremacy at sea. It is not going too far to say that 
there is no people in histor}^ more blind to the things 
which belonged to their peace and greatness than the 
subjects of the Pharaohs in their neglect of the sea and 
all it might have given them. 

Mention must be made, however, of one or two 
notable enterprises during the short periods when 
some monarch arose who was alive to the opportunities 
afforded. The earliest maritime expedition of which 
we have any authentic record was fltted out by Sankh- 
ka-Ra, the last Pharaoh of the Eleventh Dynasty. 
It sailed to Punt, or Somaliland, about the year 2800 
B.C. Eleven hundred years later, the enterprise was 
repeated by Queen Hat-Shepsu. The expeditions were 
undertaken, not to fetch articles of necessity, but 
"resin of incense, ebony, ivory set in pure gold, scented 
woods, paint for the eyes, with dog-headed apes, long- 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 23 

tailed monkeys and greyhounds, with leopard skins, 
and with natives of the country, together with their 
children." All these for the luxury of Pharaoh and 
energetic Queen Hat-Shepsu. One is reminded of 
King Solomon's cargoes of almug trees, of ivory, apes, 
and peacocks, fetched by the navy which was built 
for him by King Hiram of Tyre. The earliest recorded 
sea fight, however, was won by Rameses HI. at Mygdol, 
over the Colchians and Carians, about 1200 B.C. 

For many hundreds of years Syria was the scene 
of struggles, first between the mysterious Empire of 
the Hittites and Egypt and Assyria in turn, and then 
between the Egyptians and Chaldeans. Carchemish, 
Megiddo, Lachish are names which are continually 
recurring as the scenes of great battles, according as 
one State or the other obtained a temporary mastery 
and carried the war into or towards the territory of 
another. None of these campaigns appear to have 
been decisive, save that the Assyrians eventually 
broke the power of the Hittites in pieces. Egypt 
never subdued Chaldea, nor Chaldea Egypt, until the 
time of the Medes and Persians arrived, and their 
kings made tributary to them a confederation of small 
States, which placed in their hands the weapon needful 
for success, namely, sea power. 

The Phoenicians were the first of the early peoples 
to become great by sea. They were probably a Canaan- 
itish race, driven by more powerful tribes from the 
fertile plains of Palestine to the narrow strip of country 
which is shut in between Libanus and Anti-Libanus 
and the sea. This strip is some two hundred miles 
long, nowhere more than forty miles in breadth. Here 
they founded cities, Byblus, Berytus, Akko, Arvad, and, 
above all, Sidon and Tyre. Sidon was the oldest of 



24 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

them all. An interesting legend makes its founders 
to come from the shores of Lake Gennesaret. The 
name "Sidon" means "fishing," and it is said that, 
even at this remote period, the Lake was famous for 
its fish. But it is more probable that the name of the 
city was derived from the earliest occupation of its 
inhabitants, fishing being generally the first stage of 
sea power. These communities were united in a loose 
confederation; they were too weak and incoherent 
to resist attack by land from their powerful neighbours, 
and they fell, over and over again, into the position 
of tributaries. But they always retained their 
autonomy and their pre-eminence in trade, tiU their 
final subjugation by Alexander the Great. 

The history of Phoenicia bears striking resemblance 
to that of Venice in the Middle Ages. Both alike 
were the sea-mercenaries of great land Powers. Both 
alike, from a constricted and unprofitable homeland, 
planted great colonies, developed into the foremost 
trading nations of their times, and owed their eventual 
fall partly to the exhaustion caused by this very 
colonisation, partly to the pressure of their military 
neighbours, and partly to a diversion of the great 
trade routes of the world. But the Phoenician colonies 
were of greater importance than those of Venice, and, 
on the whole, the influence of Phoenicia on the world 
has been more widespread. 

The history of Phoenician colonisation is, indeed, 
a remarkable one. As early as 1950 B.C. the Phoeni- 
cians had subdued at least a part of Cyprus. That 
is in pre-Homeric times, before the history of Greece 
had emerged from the realms of myth. From Cyprus 
they spread to Rhodes; to Cythera, sacred, like Cyprus, 
to Aphrodite, whence they obtained the mureux, from 




The Hereford Map of the World 

This Map was Executed about 1300 A.D. 

At the top is a representation of the Last Judgment. The Earth is repre- 
sented as round and is surrounded by the Ocean; the upper part is the East. 
Rather more than half is taken up by the Continent of Asia. Europe is at 
the left hand of the lower half, Africa at the right hand. By a singular error 
the words Europaand Africa are transposed on the Map, Europa being 
placed on the continent of Africa, and vice versa. 

For convenience of reference the Key Map is divided into squares marked 
by Roman capitals, which represent approximately the following: 
I. II. III. — South-Western Asia. 
IV — Caspian Sea. 
V. — Bokharaand Thrace. 
VI. — Babylonia and part of Palestine. 
VII.— Red Sea and Mount Sinai. 
VIII. — Monastery of St. Anthony in Ethiopia. 
IX. — Scythia. 

X. — Asia Minor with the Black Sea. 
XL— The Holy Land. 
XII.— Egypt with the Nile. 
XII I.— Ethiopia. 

XIV. — To the left is Norway, in the middle Russia; Scotland and part of 
England are shown in the lower part, but the British Isles are de- 
scribed in XIX. 
XV. — Germany with part of Greece; Venice is shown on the right. 
XVI. — Italy and a great part of the Mediterranean. About the centre is Rome. 
XVII. — Part of Africa, including Carthage in the lower part to the left on a 
promontory. 
XVIII.— Part of Africa. 
XIX. — On the left are the British Isles, on the right France. 

XX. — The upper part is Provence, the lower Spain. 
XXL — At the top to the left is St. Augustine of Hippo. 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 25 

which was made the far-famed Tyrian purple; and 
to Thasos, where their gold workings were the marvel 
of the Greeks. Their influence is seen in the ruins of 
Tiryns and Mycenae; from their intercourse with the 
Greeks sprang the first rude beginnings of a law of 
nations, which did not, it is true, run on the sea, but 
rendered the person and goods of the voyager who had 
divided, a potsherd with his host inviolate on shore. 
The seafaring peoples had now come into contact, 
and it was necessary to regularise their intercourse in 
their common interest. From the Phoenicians, accord- 
ing to common tradition, the Greeks learned letters, 
numbers, a rudimentary banking system, and the art 
of navigation by the stars. 

By 1500 B.C., still before Agamemnon, Phoenician 
traders had penetrated beyond the Pillars of Herakles 
and had established their colonies of Gadeira (Gades, 
or Cadiz) and Tarshish (Tartessus) in Spain. It is 
possible, though not certain, that they penetrated 
further and brought tin from the Cassiterides, which 
some have identified with the Scilly Islands, but which 
others think are the islands of Morbihan at the mouth 
of the Vilaine. At any rate, tin was an essential com- 
modity in the Bronze age, and the only known deposits 
of it were in north-western Europe. It may, however, 
have been brought by land to Mediterranean ports. 

These Spanish colonies preceded those on the 
shores of the Mediterranean, at Lixos and Utica in 
northern Africa, in Sicily and the other islands, and, by 
very many centuries, the great offshoot, Carthage. By 
the time that Hiram, the friend of David and Solomon, 
sat on the throne of Tyre, the Phoenician States had 
arrived at a very high pitch of wealth and splendour. 
They built navies on the shore of the Red Sea, and they 



26 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

traded not only with the Greeks and the peoples of 
the far West. Their argosies sought the wealth of 
Punt and Ophir: that is to say, of Somaliland and 
India. If Herodotus may be believed — and one is 
inclined to give credence to a story so inconsistent 
with the ideas of geography which a Greek of his 
time would have held — they anticipated Bartholomew 
Diaz by two thousand years and more by saihng round 
the Cape of Good Hope and returning by the Pillars 
of Herakles, They spent two years on the voyage, 
going ashore in the autumn to sow their crops, and 
putting to sea again when the harvest was reaped. 

The magnificence of Tyre in her days of highest 
glory is a continually recurring theme in the books 
of the Prophets. The Phoenicians were not only the 
"wagoners of the world," as were the Dutch in the 
seventeenth century. They were also its greatest 
manufacturers and its leaders in art as well. But 
their sea power was peaceful. Not that the Phoeni- 
cians were by any means un warlike. They had sharp 
conflicts with the Greek colonists of the Mediterranean 
shores and islands. But their object was not conquest, 
but trade. Sea power wins empire by taking the line 
of least resistance. It does not seek the conquest of 
nations in an equal state of development. It has 
often been harsh in its dealings with inferior races. 
But, on the whole, it has brought benefits to these, 
and its empires tend to endure longer than those of 
the great world-conquerors. 

When the Phoenician cities passed under the con- 
trol of foreign empires, in the sixth and fifth centuries 
B.C., they became a potent factor in the struggle 
between Europe and Asia. They were the carriers 
in turn of the armies of the Persians and of Alexander 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 27 

the Great. What they accompHshed for their masters, 
and what they refused or failed to accompHsh, are 
both equally significant. 

In 525 B.C., or thereabouts, Cambyses invaded 
Egypt, defeated Psammenitus at Pelusium, and added 
the country of the Pharaohs to his empire. In this 
enterprise, the navy of Phoenicia was used by the 
conqueror, and Egypt fell as she had never fallen be- 
neath the arms of the Chaldeans, even when divided 
against herself by the hated Ethiopian rule. But 
when Cambyses wished to extend his conquests further 
and to attack Carthage, the Phoenicians refused their 
aid, alleging the impiety of aiding in the downfall of 
their own offspring. Cambyses was fain to make the 
attempt unaided by the power of the sea, and his army 
perished in the Libyan desert. It is very striking 
that the Great King, lord of the armies which had 
subdued Chaldea, and himself the conqueror of Egypt, 
made no attempt to coerce the little maritime people 
which defied him. He was not prepared to undertake 
the arduous task of subduing the cities by force of 
arms. Besides, he required the help of their navies 
for other enterprises. So the Persian Empire did not 
extend beyond the western border of Egypt, and 
Carthage survived to give Hannibal to history and to 
engage in her duel with the power of Rome. 

The meaning of what happened to Cambyses is 
illustrated by an episode in the career of Alexander the 
Great, which, for the sake of clearness, shall be dealt 
with here, though it occurred two hundred years later. 
After the battle of Issus (333 B.C.), Darius was driven 
beyond the Euphrates, and Alexander found himself 
in almost undisputed possession of Syria. Sidon, 
Aradus, and Byblus submitted to him; but Tyre held 



28 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

out, faithful to the Persian rule. Alexander wished to 
conquer Egypt, in order that he might have a free 
hand to follow his great adversary in northern Asia; 
but he dared not undertake an expedition to Egypt 
while the Persians, through the power of the Phoenician 
navy, held command of the sea. He therefore set 
himself to reduce Tyre, a result which he accomplished 
after a desperate and bloody siege of seven months. 
These events of the remote past are highly instructive 
as to the workings of sea power. Cambyses, aided by 
the Phoenicians reduced Egypt. When they refused 
their aid, he failed to carry his conquests further into 
Africa, and to subdue Carthage. Alexander, one of 
the greatest strategists of the world, recognized that 
the attempt to conquer Egypt without such command 
of the sea as would ensure his communications was a 
hopeless task in the then condition of the world. Napo- 
leon was destined to learn the same lesson regarding 
an attempt to invade Asia Minor from Egypt. He 
marched across the desert and over the plain of Pales- 
tine, to find himself held up at Acre (the ancien Akko) 
by a small garrison of Turks which had the support 
of a squadron under Captain Sydney Smith. He could 
not take Acre; he dared not leave it on his flank un- 
taken; his own fleet had been destroyed by Nelson 
at the battle of the Nile in the preceding year. So the 
great conqueror killed his prisoners, poisoned his 
wounded, and returned to Egypt a baffled man. Mehe- 
met Ali, the Egyptian, was similarly held up at Acre 
by Sir Edward Codrington and his fleet. Sea power 
along the Syrian coast has always been the key to 
Egypt, and the attempts of the Turks to take it from 
us, with the command of the sea in our hands, have 
been hopeless from the first. 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 29 

The sea power of the Greeks differed from that of 
Phoenicia both in its origin and in its workings. It was 
more truly mihtary in its nature. The Greeks re- 
sembled the Phoenicians in that they were divided 
into a number of quasi-independent communities 
individually weak and still further weakened by inter- 
nal dissensions; difficult to unite, save under the most 
overpowering sense of danger. The restless, the 
insubordinate, and the adventurous found the place 
wherein they dwelt, too strait for them, and Greece, 
like Phoenicia, threw off numerous swarms from the 
parent hive which settled on the coasts and islands 
of the Mediterranean, in Propontis and on the shores of 
the Euxine. But there was a wide difference between 
the Greek colonies and the "Phoenician. The Greeks 
went as settlers rather than as traders, seeking fertile- 
lands to till, determined to settle down under a govern- 
ment suited to their own minds. Greece had no in- 
dustries, such as glass-making and dyeing; in those 
early days, no products for sale or barter. Phoenicia 
set up "factories," or trading establishments; Greece, 
"plantations," or agricultural communities. The 
Greek colonies were seldom a support to their parent 
States. Moreover, in the cases of the former, whether 
the colony was planted by Tyre or Sidon, the settlers 
were simply Phoenician. In the case of the Greeks, 
they remained Athenian or Corinthian or Phocean; 
Ionian or Dorian. They exacerbated the differences, 
instead of supplying a cement of union. 

How would it be with the British Empire if Canada 
had been settled entirely by the Scots, Australia by 
the EngHsh, and New Zealand by the Irish? Most 
probably unity would have suffered, not only in the 
over-sea dominions, but also at home. The growth 



30 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

of separate English, Scottish, and Irish communities 
across the seas would have accentuated the racial 
differences in these islands. Certainly, what we know 
of the strong Nationalist feeling of the over-sea Irish, 
even when mixed with settlers of English and Scottish 
descent, does not tend to the belief that the Imperial 
tie with an Irish New Zealand would be a strong one. 
It is no disparagement of the gifted Irish race to say so. 
Fortunately, British colonisation was not widespread 
until the organic union of the greater island, at any 
rate, was complete. Among the Greek States, there 
never was any organic union at all. 

Greek colonisation began in the seventh century 
B.C., and spread both east and west. To the east, 
the chief settlements were on the coast of Asia Minor 
and Thrace, on the shores of Propontis, or the Sea of 
Marmora, in the islands of the ^gean and even on the 
shores of the Euxine. To the west, the chief settle- 
ments were, of course, those in the Ionian and Tyrrhe- 
nian seas, on the coast of Italy and on the island of 
Sicily. Greek colonies and Phoenician were inter- 
mixed. While the Phoenicians held Sardinia, the 
Phoceans were in possession of Corsica. The Greeks 
founded a colony at Tartessus, in Spain, two hundred 
years after the settlement of the Phoenicians at Gadeira. 
The two peoples were dove-tailed in with one another 
on Sicily, much as the French and the British were in 
India in the eighteenth century. The Phoenicians 
held Malta and Gozo; the Greeks Capri and the Lipari 
islands. Lastly, in the sixth century B.C., the Phoceans 
founded the colony of Massalia, which is now Mar- 
seilles. On the northern shore of Africa, the only Greek 
settlement was in Cyrenaica, now part of the Italian 
possessions. All the rest was held by the Phoenicians. 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 31 

In this mosaic of civilisations was the germ of in- 
evitable trouble, even had no other seafaring races, 
such as the Etruscans, been involved. The Greek' 
colonies along the coast of Italy, the Phoenician in 
northern Africa, important as both were in themselves, 
became links in the chain of communications which 
joined their parent States with the possessions in 
Spain, or, in the case of the Phoceans, with Massalia. 
The collision came in the sixth century B.C., when 
the Phoenicians of northern Africa, joining with the 
Etruscans, attacked the Phoceans in Corsica, with 
the result that, despite a victory in a fleet action, 
Massalia was isolated, and the Phoenicians possessed 
themselves of the Greek colony of Tartessus. They 
had Carthage to rely on as a base of sea power, nearer 
than the bases of the Greeks. Oversea possessions 
must always be a source of anxiety under such cir- 
cumstances. Hence the nervousness of the Austral- 
asian Dominions at the growing sea power of Japan. 

The conflicts between the Phoenicians and Greek 
colonists, however, were but preliminaries to the great 
trial of strength which was to come when Darius and 
Xerxes attempted to make the land conquer the sea. 
The Persian monarchs were able to overrun, and to 
join into one great Empire, all Asia Minor, Mesopo- 
tamia, Syria, and Egypt. In doing so, they were helped 
to no inconsiderable extent by Phoenician sea power. 
But, so far, the armies of Asia had met with no opponent 
who was formidable upon the water. It was left to 
Greece, or rather to parts of Greece, weak, selfish, and 
divided as were the Hellenic States, to pronounce ' ' Thus 
far, and no farther," on the schemes of the first aspir- 
ants to the dominion of the world. That has been 
the immemorial and the noblest function of sea power. 



32 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

The first encounter took place by land. The Per- 
sians sailed across the ^gean unchecked by the Greeks, 
and landed on the east coast of Attica. The Spartans, 
the leading military people among the Greeks, were 
late in coming to the assistance of the Athenians and 
Plateans, who gave battle on the plain of Marathon, 
between the mountains and the sea, where the Persian 
cavalry had not room to act. The Persians were com- 
pletely defeated in what has been described as one of 
the decisive battles of the world. They took to their 
ships, and, sailing round Cape Sunium to Phaleron, 
hoped to storm Athens before the Greek army could 
arrive for its defence. But Miltiades by a forced march 
forestalled them, and the Persians sailed for home. 

Ten years later, Xerxes renewed the attack with an 
immense armament, gathered from all the nations of 
his realm. The army marched by way of Thrace, 
Macedonia, and Thessaly, the fleet sailing parallel 
with it along the coast, as the fleet of Henry V. sailed 
parallel to the army marching from Harfleur to Calais, 
which fought at Agincourt. Mardonius, Xerxes' 
general, was met with and withstood for a time by 
Leonidas at the renowned Pass of Thermopylae. The 
Greek and Persian fleets, meantime, lay in the straits 
which separate the island of Euboea from the main- 
land, the Persians having the advantage of position 
off the mainland itself. Two indecisive actions were 
fought here, the Greeks bearing themselves well against 
superior numbers. But on hearing of the fall of Ther- 
mopylae, Themistocles resolved to retreat. He sailed 
round Sunium to Salamis; the defence of Athens was 
abandoned and the city stormed and taken by the 
Persians. 

So far, it would appear that Greece was more efTec- 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 33 

tually defended by land than by sea. In 490 B.C., the 
Persians had command of the sea, but Miltiades beat 
them by land at Marathon, and forestalled them when 
they attempted an attack on Athens. Ten years 
later, owing to the failure of the Greek resistance on 
land, Mardonius advanced over the terrain where 
Artaphernes had been successfully withstood, and 
sacked Athens itself. Had the Persians made a proper 
use of their superiority at sea on the former occasion, 
however, the result might well have been different. 
If Artaphernes had made use of a portion of the fleet 
to threaten the coast of the Peloponnesus, he would 
have broken up the Hellenic confederacy, and he could 
have landed his army at some spot where his still 
overwhelming superiority in numbers would have 
enabled him to break down the resistance of the 
Athenians. But the Persians did not understand the 
use of sea power. All the same, Marathon has no title 
to be described as a decisive battle. The Persians got 
away practically unscathed. The land fight was a 
portent, not a decision. The decisive battle was to 
take place at sea. 

When Themistocles arrived at Salamis, the separa- 
tist tendencies of the Hellenes at once began to show 
themselves. The Peloponnesians, under the leader- 
ship of Sparta, gave no proper assistance to the 
defence of Attica. They busied themselves with build- 
ing a great wall across the Isthmus, and wished to 
withdraw their ships to defend its flanks. If they 
showed in this a realisation of the elementary principle 
that it is the fleet and not the sea which defends, they 
ignored the far greater maxim of naval strategy, that 
the proper objective is the enemy's fleet. Themis- 
tocles, with that mother-wit which is not incompatible 



34 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

with baseness of character, anticipated Drake and 
Nelson in his realisation of this. The Council, over- 
borne by the Spartans, decided on retreat. Themis- 
tocles adopted the doubtful expedient of sending 
word to the enemy of this decision. Whether he was 
actually in treasonable correspondence with Xerxes 
is a much-debated point. It may be that, like Judas 
Iscariot, he was a traitor with the firm belief that his 
treason would bring gain to himself and no great harm 
to the betrayed. He gained his purpose and brought 
on a battle, in which the Persians were signally de- 
feated. The light, well-handled ships of the Athe- 
nians and iEginetans dashed among the heavy craft 
of the enemy, jammed together in a too-narrow space, 
broke their oars and left them helpless upon the water. 
The Greeks, like the English of Elizabeth's time, were 
sailors, and had evolved a system of sea warfare. The 
Persians, who had control of the fleet, though it was 
mainly composed of Phoenician and Ionian ships, were 
landsmen and fought as soldiers upon the water. 
Artemisia, Queen of Halicarnassus, who was fighting 
in the Persian cause, rammed and sank an Ionian 
trireme which stood in her way of escape. Xerxes, 
watching from the "rocky brow" immortalised by 
Byron, imagined the vessel sunk to be an enemy. 
"My men have become women, my women men," 
he exclaimed, and loaded the indomitable queen with 
honours. Herodotus says that the Greeks lost forty 
ships and the Persians two hundred, exclusive of 
those which were captured with all their crews. A 
contingent of troops which had been landed on the 
island of Psyttalia was also destroyed. 

The sea battle of Salamis saved Greece and Europe. 
Xerxes became nervous about his communications, fear- 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 35 

ing that the Greeks would sail up the Hellespont and 
destroy the bridge of boats, as, indeed, Themistocles 
was anxious to do. The king therefore left Mar- 
donius with three hundred thousand men, and retired 
with the rest of his army and the remnant of his fleet. 
Mardonius was defeated and slain at Platea, and, 
on the same day, or a few days later, the Athenians 
won another great naval victory at Mycale, which 
detached the greater part of Ionia from the Persian 
cause. Thus ended the attempt of Xerxes to add 
Europe to his empire. Of the Persian fleet, one-fourth 
was Phoenician, and one-third at least was contributed 
by the Greek colonies. The defection of the latter 
shows the moral effect of the Athenian victory. 

The war left Athens — the one State which had 
grasped the meaning and function of sea power — with 
the hegemony of Hellas, which had previously belonged 
to the Spartans. The League of Delos, which com- 
prised most of the States of Central Greece outside 
the Peloponnesus, and the Ionian States, was formed 
immediately afterwards. In process of time, the 
smaller members became mere tributaries of Athens, 
which was thus able to build up a centralised and 
homogeneous sea power. The mutterings of the storm 
which was to burst in the Peloponnesian war hardly 
disturbed the glories of the era of Pericles. It would 
be too long a matter to follow in detail the events of 
that protracted struggle in which Hellas, having saved 
Europe, did her best to destroy herself. One fact 
stands out pre-eminent : that Athens, surrounded as 
she was on land by forces greatly superior to her own, 
ill-supported by jealous allies and tributaries whom 
her domineering conduct had alienated from her, 
was yet able to sustain the unequal contest, and even 



36 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

to emerge the victor in the first period which ended 
with the peace of Nicias. She owed her escape from 
destruction entirely to her sea power. She lost battles 
even by sea; the hoplites of Sparta ravaged the lands 
of Attica; her people fell by thousands before the 
plague. But she surrounded the Peloponnesus with 
her fleet and naval stations, and the Spartan armies 
fought with their heads ever turned over their shoul- 
ders, never daring to be long away from their own soil. 
She cut off her foes from the granaries of Syracuse. 
She suppressed the revolts in Mitylene and elsewhere 
with a high hand, preventing the succour which Sparta 
would have sent from reaching the rebels. Her fleets 
forbade co-operation between the Spartans and their 
allies in the north, and at the time of her deepest 
distress she was able, by her superiority at sea, to hold 
on tenaciously to the blockade of Potidea and to com- 
pel the surrender of that stubborn town. It is interest- 
ing to note the great name of Sophocles among those 
who had the best grip of the vital importance of sea 
power to Athens. 

In the second phase of the war, the conditions com- 
pletely altered. The baneful influence of Alcibiades 
dragged the Athenians into a war of aggression, for 
which sea power is ill-suited, and distant adventure. 
With the Spartan at their gates, they were compelled 
to use their fleets excentrically, and they underwent, 
in consequence, the disasters of Syracuse and ^gos- 
potami. After the ruin which fell upon their sea power 
in consequence of the latter defeat, Athens itself was 
taken, and the Athenians, having lost command of 
the sea, had no means of repairing the disaster as pre- 
viously they had done by the victory of Salamis. The 
strategy which led to ^Egospotami^ fought just above 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 37 

the Narrows of the Dardanelles, was correct enough. 
Alcibiades and Conon followed the main force of the 
enemy to bring it to battle. They were defeated, not 
because their plan was bad, but because its execution 
was grossly faulty, owing to carelessness. The disaster 
might still have been repaired, for Conon escaped 
from the battle with his squadron "in being." The 
position was not much worse than that of Britain 
after Torrington's defeat off Beachy Head in 1690, 
when the army of James II. in Ireland represented the 
threat to Athens of the land power of Sparta. But 
James was defeated at the battle of the Boyne twelve 
days later, while the army of Sparta remained intact, 
and the Athenians had lost the power to harry the 
coast of the Peloponnesus. So they were subjected 
to the humiliation of digging down the Long Walls 
which connected Athens and the Piraeus at the behest 
of their enemies. 

The walls were destined, however, to be rebuilt by 
Conon, who, with the assistance of Evagoras, the so- 
called "tyrant" of Cyprus and Pharnabazus, the 
Persian satrap, won a great victory at sea over the 
Spartans at Cnidus, with a mixed fleet of Athenians 
and Phoenicians. Henceforward, the history of Greece, 
to the foundation of the Empire of Alexander the Great, 
is one long struggle of contending States , in turn sup- 
ported by the Persian power, for the mastery of Hellas. 
Of all these it may be said that the State which had 
command of the sea was master. Inevitably; for, 
by command of the sea alone could the Persian aid 
be enjoyed. 

In the meantime, the power of Carthage and of 
Rome was ripening in the Western Mediterranean for 
their decisive struggle. The common estimation that 



38 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Carthage was a great sea power is somewhat unaccount- 
able. It is true that the Carthaginians have consider- 
able maritime achievements to their credit. They 
spread colonies over northern Africa, and they overran 
Spain to the Ebro. They certainly sailed to the North 
and had trading relations with Britain, perhaps also 
with Scandinavia. But the analogy, of which the 
Germans are particularly fond, which compares Car- 
thage with Britain, is superficial. The Carthaginians, 
of the era of the Punic Wars, had ceased to be a maritime 
nation. They deserved that title only so long as they 
maintained their connection with the mother States 
of Phoenicia, and these had by now been absorbed into 
the Alexandrine Empire. It was said of the Cartha- 
ginians — and it was meant as a compliment — that 
"they chose to live in Libya and not in Phoenicia." 
That is, they cut themselves off from the maritime con- 
federation of their race, as the United States cut them- 
selves off from ours. They fitted out great fleets, and 
at the beginning of the Punic Wars, before the Romans 
had developed their navy, they won several battles. 
But that they should have been worsted on what was 
supposed to be their own element by a people which 
had to copy a wrecked trireme as a model for their 
ships and taught their sailors to row on dry land, 
proves that they had not the real "sea-sense." The 
pure-blooded Carthaginian of this period, enervated 
by riches and the command of mercenary armies of 
this race, had ceased to learn war. In this Carthage 
differed utterly from Venice, where, to the very end 
of her period of power, the commercial nobility took 
their own part in the fighting by land and sea. Only 
a few of the great Carthaginian houses, notably the 
Barca family, gave personal service in the wars. Their 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 39 

hired or impressed Libyans, Numidians, Spaniards, 
when led by a Hannibal or a Hasdrubal, could be 
formidable enough as soldiers, as the Romans learned. 
But sea power rests securely only on the character 
and sea sense of the race which is dominant in the 
State, and on the personal service of its sons. Great 
Britain has this indispensable qualification; Carthage 
had not. The German analogy, built on the German 
view that all volunteers are "mercenaries," is therefore 
unsound. Great Britain is no more comparable to 
Carthage than is modem Germany to republican 
Rome. 

The course of events had been such that, when Rome 
and Carthage came into conflict, there was no great 
sea power any longer existing. Alexander, for his 
own ends, had broken the strength of Tyre, and the 
tradition of the Macedonian Empire, as represented 
by Pyrrhus of Epirus, was not naval. His alliance 
with the Carthaginians brought them no effective aid. 
Hellas, in the thrall of the Macedonians, had ceased 
to count. In the country of the blind, therefore, the 
one-eyed was king, and the one-eyed proved to be 
Rome. Mahan has made the naval lessons of the 
Punic Wars the starting-point of his most famous 
work, The Influence oj Sea Power upon History. He 
points out that, although many people have held, 
because there was cross-raiding, and the Carthaginians 
occasionally won a battle at sea and sent supplies and 
reinforcements to Hannibal, that the command of the 
sea remained in doubt, this opinion is erroneous. No 
navy, however superior, can reckon on being able 
entirely to prevent occasional incursions by its enemy. 
The crucial fact which shows the supremacy of Rome 
is this: that the Carthaginians elected to use the long 



40 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

and perilous land route into Italy by Spain and the 
Alps instead of the direct sea route, making use of their 
Sicilian bases, and that Scipio, grasping the supreme 
importance of maritime communications, struck un- 
hindered at the Carthaginian base in Spain by means 
of an oversea expedition. Hannibal, one of the three 
superlative military geniuses of the world's history, 
lost two-thirds of his army on its march to Italy, and 
his brother, Hasdrubal, made the toilsome journey 
only to be cut to pieces at the Metaurus, owing to the 
disorganisation and exhaustion of his troops. It is 
impossible to believe that Hannibal did not grasp the 
advantage of the shorter line of communications, and 
would not have used it if he could have done so with 
safety. The campaign of Zama, like that of Waterloo, 
clinched a business which had been already settled by 
sea power. 

The ruin of Carthage was quickly followed by the 
Roman conquest of Hellas, and that, in turn, by the 
overthrow of the Ptolemies. Rome was mistress of 
the Mediterranean and its shores. The dominion of 
the world was yet to be settled by sea power, but in a 
fight between Roman and Roman. Octavianus beat 
Anthony at Actium, almost on the scene of Lepanto 
and Navarino, and but a short distance from Salamis, 
the region where contests between East and West are 
fated to be settled. Thus the Empire of the Caesars 
came into being. But the Romans can hardly be 
counted among the races which have been great at sea. 
They depended rather upon the subjects over whom 
their land power gave them dominion, the Liburnians, 
Illyrians, and so forth, than upon themselves. The 
ponderous galleys of the regular Roman fleet were 
simply platforms from which soldiers were to fight, as 



SEA POWER IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 41 

were, much later, the galleys of the Venetians, the 
ships of the Armada, and, indeed, the vessels of all 
the navies designed primarily for service in the closed 
waters of the Mediterranean. The Romans met the 
Carthaginians when the latter had forgotten the 
habit of the sea and were morally and politically de- 
generate. That was the determining factor, and not 
any special aptitude for sea-warfare on either side. 
The methods which gave them victory were merely 
extensions of the method of land warfare to the water. 
They could not have prevailed against a foe of real 
maritime instinct. 



CHAPTER III 

**A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 

Despite what has been written above, as to the 
decadence of Carthaginian sea power at the time of the 
Punic Wars, it has to be recorded that this people 
made a notable contribution to the knowledge of the 
world beyond the bounds of the (Ecumene, if their 
early and scanty records are to be believed. We are 
the more bound to notice this because it is from a 
Carthaginian source that we obtain our first knowledge 
of Britain. Accounts have come down to us through 
Pliny and the late Roman writer Rufus Festus Avienus, 
of two expeditions which the Carthaginians sent into 
the Atlantic about the year 500 B.C. The one, under 
a leader bearing the common Punic name of Hanno, 
sailed south; the other, under Himilco, turned north- 
wards. Hanno's expedition coasted along the east 
of Africa, and reached the mouth of the Senegal, or 
of the Gaboon. They saw many wonders on their 
way, including mountains and rivers which streamed 
with fire; and they reached an island "full of savage 
people, the greater part of whom were women, whose 
bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called 
Gorillae." "Though we pursued the men," the story 
continues, "we could not seize any of them; but all 
fled from us, escaping over the precipices and defend- 

42 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 43 

ing themselves with stones. Three women were, how- 
ever, taken; but they attacked their conductors with 
their teeth and hands and could not be prevailed 
upon to accompany us. Having killed them, we flayed 
them, and brought their skins with us to Carthage." 
One is less surprised at the reluctance of the hairy 
ladies than at the abrupt methods of their captors. 

Himilco sailed northwards, as has been said, and 
reached a promontory which he called (Estrymnis, 
near the tin-bearing isles known as the Cassiterides. 
CEstrymnis was two days' sail from the Holy Island, 
identified with lerne, or Ireland, "near which is the 
large island of Albion." If this be really the genuine 
account of Himilco and not a late gloss of Avienus, as 
the name Albion leads one to suspect, we have the 
earliest certain mention of our islands. CEstrymnis 
may be Point St. Matthieu, in Ushant, or it may be 
Le Croisic. But the mention of lerne as being two 
days' sail, and of the large island of Albion lying "near 
it," is strange. For, if (Estrymnis be Ushant, Cornwall, 
and not Ireland, would be the nearest landfall after 
the Scillies, if we take the latter to be the Cassiterides. 
But Himilco's mention of our islands is probably 
from hearsay. It is unlikely that the Carthaginian 
explorer trusted himself to the open sea. If he visited 
Albion, it would probably have been after coasting 
along the northern shore of France and reaching the 
Straits of Dover. Himilco, however, seems to have 
seen the coracles of the British and Irish, who, no 
doubt, came over — hardy fellows! — to northern France 
to trade, as they did five hundred years later in Julius 
Caesar's time. It was probably from them that he 
heard of the islands lying to the northwards, and 
formed an extremely hazy idea of their geographical 



44 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

position. It is rather strange that either Himilco or 
his supposed informants should have known that 
Albion and lerne were islands, and it must be confessed 
that it looks as if the more recently acquired knowledge 
of Pliny and Avienus has been interwoven with the 
Carthaginian's tale. Be this as it may, we are, per- 
haps, entitled to conclude that the Britons, penitus 
toto divisos orbe, came into contact with the civilisation 
of the Mediterranean as early as 500 B.C. 

Himilco says that the sea through which he sailed 
to reach CEstrymnis was sluggish, with the winds so 
light that they would scarce drive the ship; that it 
was full of weed, which held the vessel back, and shal- 
low withal, so that the water sometimes barely covered 
the land. Nevertheless, it abounded in sea monsters. 
Some people have conjectured, from the mention of 
the weed, that Himilco reached the Sargasso Sea. 
But the rest of the description, and especially the 
shallowness of the water, forbid this interpretation. 
It must be remembered that, coming from the Mediter- 
ranean, he was unacquainted with the phenomena of 
the tides. His voyage was a coasting voyage, and, 
therefore, at low water, he would be liable to find 
himself aground, or almost aground, in the shallow 
seas off the western coast of France. The sea monsters 
were, no doubt, the whales of the Bay of Biscay. 

With Himilco, the period of Phoenician exploration 
closes, so far as our knowledge goes. The next 
explorer is a much more important person, namely 
Pytheas of Massalia, a Phocean, who undertook one 
or more voyages to the North between 330 and 325 
B.C. This was just before the defeat of the Greeks 
by the Phoenicians off Corsica gave the latter control 
of the communications between southern France and 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 45 

Spain. Pytheas was an astronomer of some repute, 
and seems to have been the first who had the idea of 
dividing the world into degrees of latitude. He left 
an account of his adventures which, though doubted 
by writers like Polybius and Strabo, is much better 
authenticated than that of Himilco. He added no 
little to the store of geographical knowledge. But 
the first interesting point about his voyage is that he 
appears first to have established intercourse with the 
Northmen, through Britain. 

He sailed round Cape St. Vincent and up the coast 
of Iberia and Gaul. He circumnavigated Britain, 
and gives a measurement of the circumference of the 
island which, unfortunately, is just twice too great. 
He discovered the Orkney Islands and passed thence to 
a land still further to the north, which is identified 
with the Thule of the Romans. Here he saw the mid- 
night sun, and came upon the fringe of the arctic ice 
in what he speaks of as "a sluggish and congealed 
sea" {mare pigrum et concretum). He calls Britain 
Brettanice, which seems to confirm the opinion that 
he had first-hand dealings with the inhabitants. 

Thule is generally identified with Iceland; but, for 
many reasons, it is practically certain that Iceland was 
not the country which Pytheas reached. It is more 
plausibly identified with Norway. He places it "six 
days' sail north of Brettanice." The Phoceans, like 
the Phoenicians, were coastwise sailors, and it is very 
unlikely that Pytheas would have launched out into 
the unknown where, according to the geographical 
ideas of his time, there was no land, unless he had some 
positive evidence that land existed. It is therefore 
concluded that, even at this remote date, there was 
communication between the Scandinavian countries 



46 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

and Britain. If this be so, there was already a race 
of seafaring men in the North who used the sea at least 
as boldly as the Phoenicians and the Greeks. More 
boldly, in fact, for the voyage across the open and 
stormy waters of the North Sea was more perilous 
than a coasting voyage along the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean. It may be asked how it came about, if this 
were so, that the subjugation of the Britons by the 
northern tribes did not take place many centuries 
sooner than it did; for our woad-painted forerunners 
could hardly have resisted the invaders in their coracles. 
The only reply which can be given is that, so far as 
we can gather from the accounts which have reached 
us of the writings of Pytheas (it must be remembered 
that his book, On the Ocean, is not extant), those 
northern peoples had already reached the agricultural 
stage of development. They were not yet pressed 
by the more powerful tribes from the East, and they 
perhaps found little to tempt them in forest-covered 
Britain, especially as its inhabitants were not yet 
enervated by Roman rule and protection. The pur- 
pose for which the Northmen came can only be con- 
jectured. But, as there was trade between the Britons 
and the inhabitants of north-western France, it is 
possible that the amber of the Baltic actually found 
its way to the Mediterranean through Britain, which 
was thus already an entrepot. 

If we accept the evidence, such as it is — and it 
cannot be given in detail here — for early intercourse 
between Britain and the North, it was in these islands 
that the sea power of the North and the Mediterranean 
first met, in peace, not in war, engaged in exploration 
and in trade. It was for Britain that they were de- 
stined to contend, and it was to Britain that the sea 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 47 

power of both was eventually to pass. The facts of 
geography decided the matter. When once the race 
fit to wield sea power was established and the incentive 
to adventure was present, the supremacy of Great 
Britain at sea was a natural growth, and not an artifi- 
cial development fostered by policy. But, in the era 
of Pytheas, the Viking age was yet a thousand years 
distant, and the eagles had not yet flown over Britain. 
The Romans, by nature and tradition, were an 
agricultural and military, not a trading and maritime, 
people. Their legions conquered the races round them 
by their incomparable soldierly spirit and discipline. 
The provinces so acquired were held by garrisons to 
whom grants of land were given, and who settled 
down and intermarried with the subject peoples. Our 
Allies, the Rumanians, for instance, boast themselves 
descended from the coloni of Trajan, When, therefore, 
Rome became mistress of the Mediterranean ; when the 
engineering skill of the Romans had opened up the 
highways of Europe, it is the coracles of Britain and 
the ships of Frisia which bring the tin and amber to 
the markets of the Continent, not the galleys of the 
Greeks and Phoenicians which fetch it thence, as afore- 
time. Rome is only in appearance an exception to the 
rule that the peoples which have need of the neces- 
saries of life send and fetch them. It is true that, in 
the time of the Caesars, the city was fed by com from 
Egypt, brought in ships of Adramyttium. But these 
all owned the sovereignty of Rome. They represented 
the seafaring portions of her Empire. In the North 
the rule worked. Long sea trade, by way of the Atlan- 
tic, almost ceased from the beginning of the Roman 
dominion, and was never really revived till the dis- 
covery of the New World. 



48 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Small claim as the Romans had to be considered 
a great maritime people, our naval history opens with 
a defeat at their hands. Julius Csesar, in his victorious 
march through Gaul, in the first century B.C., reached 
the western coast, and there came into contact with 
the Veneti, a seafaring tribe which dwelt about the 
mouth of the Loire. Caesar ordered that a fleet should 
be built on the river, and, when it was completed, 
marched his soldiers on board and attacked the Veneti 
off the rocky coast, which, many hundreds of years 
later, was to be the scene of Hawke's great victory of 
Quiberon Bay. At this time, as for many centuries 
later, the Mediterranean peoples relied on oars as the 
prime means of propulsion; the Northerners rather 
upon sails. The former remained soldiers on ship- 
board; the latter were destined to evolve a system of 
real naval war. In this action, however, fought in the 
narrow waters at the mouth of the river, their reliance 
on sails was the bane of the Veneti. They had two 
hundred and twenty ships, of which a proportion were 
British, probably small trading ships which happened 
to be in the river, as was their wont, on "their lawful 
occasions." The following is Caesar's own account 
of the first recorded sea battle in which Britons took 
part. He says: 

About two hundred and twenty of the ships of the 
Veneti, fully equipped and appointed with every kind of 
naval implement, sailed forth from the harbour and drew 
up opposite ours; nor did it appear clear to Brutus who 
commanded the fleet, nor to the tribunes of the soldiers 
and the centurions to whom the several ships were assigned, 
what to do, or what system of tactics to adopt; for they 
knew that damage could not be done by their beaks; and 
that though turrets were built on their decks, yet the height 




Statue of Alfred the Great at Winchester, England 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 49 

of the stems of the barbarian ships exceeded these, so that 
the weapons could not be cast up from our lower posi- 
tions with sufficient effect, and those cast by the Gauls 
fell more forcibly upon us. One thing provided by our 
men was of great service: namely, sharp hooks inserted 
into and fastened upon poles. When the ropes which 
fastened the sail-yards were caught by them and pulled, 
and our vessels vigorously impelled by the oars, the ropes 
were severed, and the yards necessarily fell down, so that, 
as all the hope of the Gallic vessels depended upon their 
sails and rigging, the entire management of the ships 
was taken from them at the same time. 

Eventually, the Veneti turned to fly — such of them, 
presumably, as retained their sails intact — but the 
wind suddenly dropped and a flat calm prevailed, in 
which the Romans annihilated their enemy. The 
battle is an instructive contrast to that which was 
fought when "Hawke came swooping from the West," 
taking "the foe for pilot and the cannon-glare for light." 
If such conditions had prevailed, Caesar would have 
got "the father and mother of a batin'." He won 
by means of a landsman's device, comparable with the 
use of the "corvi," or spiked gangplanks which enabled 
the Romans to swarm on board the Carthaginian ships. 
Hawke, on the other hand, dashed in from seaward 
and annihilated the foe among the rocks. The stormy 
wind and tempest, dreaded by soldiers on shipboard, 
are ever the allies of the true seaman. Therefore, 

"Thank him who isled us here and roughly set 
His Briton in blown seas and storming showers." 

Marching eastwards again, Caesar looked across the 
Channel to the white cliffs of Dover, whence comes the 



50 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

name of Albion. In 55 B.C., Gaul was sufficiently- 
settled for him to lead his legionaries across the Strait. 
The Britons gathered in such numbers to resist him 
that the attempt to land at Dover was abandoned, 
and the transports sailed on to Deal, where the Roman 
eagles for the first time were borne on British soil. 
If the Veneti and their British allies had won in Quibe- 
ron Bay, Caesar might never have crossed to Britain. 
But the silver streak of stormy water was no protec- 
tion in itself. Rather the contrary. Had the cliffs 
of Dover guarded a Pass of Thermopylae, Caesar might 
not have been able to turn the flank of the British 
defence. As it was, it was easier for him to sail to 
Deal than it was for the defenders to transfer their 
army thither by land. He was ashore before their 
levies could come up with his forces. "Far distant, 
storm-beaten ships" are a defence, whether they lie 
off Brest, off Toulon, or at Scapa Flow; stormy water 
without the ships, is none. A second landing was 
made the next year, but affairs recalled Caesar to the 
East, and the conquest of Britain was left to Claudius, 
a hundred years later. The Roman occupation of 
Britain lasted three hundred years. Rome reached 
her zenith and fell into decay during that period. But 
Roman Britain never learned that her future lay upon 
the water. The Norsemen were passing from Norway 
and Denmark to Iceland, and then to Greenland, and, 
eventually, to "Wineland the Good," indentified with 
Labrador. The mysterious "Eruli," the pirate tribe 
whose name is, perhaps, a Latinised form of Jarl, or 
Earl, were sailing south and east, even as far as Lucca. 
The Viking age, with all its consequences, was begin- 
ning; but the Britons were content to be defended by 
the legions of their Roman masters. The latter built 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 51 

the great Wall of Hadrian, to keep out the Picts, and 
they appointed a Count of the Saxon Shore, to keep 
out the Northmen. But as, generally speaking, they 
gave him no fleet to assist him in his task, the poor 
gentleman must have had a sorry time of it. Perhaps, 
however, they were wise in their generation, for, when 
they set a thief to catch a thief, by appointing a noted 
pirate, one Carausius, Count of the Saxon Shore, he 
incontinently entered into a compact with the pirates 
he was set to catch, shared their gains with them, and 
used the money to invest himself with the Imperial 
purple. He sacked Boulogne, and played havoc with 
the Roman communications with Britain before he 
was finally suppressed. 

The disciplined legionaries of the Romans sufficed 
to protect Britain from serious invasion, so long as they 
remained. But when the number was far greater than 
Rome could spare with the Visigoth thundering at the 
gates of the city, the legions were withdrawn, and the 
Britons, spoon-fed and un warlike, left to their fate. 
The Northmen attacked the flanks of the Wall from 
east and west; the Picts broke through and marched 
almost to London; the Britons were fain to call in 
the Saxons and other marauders along their coasts to 
defend them. They came; they chased the Painted 
People home again — and they stayed. Hengist landed 
at Ebbsfleet in 449 A.D., and for the next hundred and 
fifty years there was a continual influx of Saxons, 
Jutes, and Angles. The latter people migrated in a 
body from their homes in Frisia and Schleswig, driven 
out by the pressure of still stronger and fiercer races 
behind them. All Britain east of Seven Sea and south 
of the Forth became Saxon, Jute, or English, eventually 
to be unified under Egbert. It seems difficult to ac- 



52 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

count for the fact that these sea-wolves, as we have 
been taught to consider them, had no sooner settled 
in the conquered land than they drew up their long 
keels on the beach and forgot the habit of the sea. 
It is, however, the case, certainly so far as the Angles 
are concerned, that they came as settlers, not as rovers, 
while the other tribes, no doubt, found Britain a pleas- 
anter, more sunny, and more fertile land than their 
own, and were glad to put what they regarded as the 
barrier of the sea between themselves and the warrior 
peoples which were pressing upon them from the East. 
They brought their own social customs and political 
system with them; they were used to the life of a com- 
munity. They were not Vikings like the Norse and 
the Danes. They hoped to be able to pursue their 
peaceful occupations of husbandry and herdsmanship 
in the new land which they had made theirs. Only 
Offa of Mercia seems to have maintained a navy, prior 
to the days of Alfred. 

If such were the hope of the Anglo-Saxons, it was 
writ in water. Already, before the end of the reign of 
Egbert, the Danes had harried the coast, landing not 
only in East Anglia, but even at the mouth of the Dart, 
and, finally, in Cornwall, where they were joined by 
the revolted Britons. Egbert gained a decisive victory 
at Hengist's Down in 836 a.d. But the Danes came 
in ever-increasing numbers during the next three reigns, 
and, though often defeated, made East Anglia a Dan- 
ish kingdom, and penetrated into Wessex as far as 
Reading. The history of the Danish incursions shows 
us how hopeless is the defence of an island without a 
navy superior to all possible assailants. The invaders 
attacked at all points, from Bamborough in Northum- 
bria to Cornwall, and the task of marching and counter- 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 53 

marching an army to resist them wherever they might 
land was a hopeless one. This was realised by one 
alone of our Saxon kings, the great Alfred, who began 
his glorious reign in 871 A.D. He has been called 
"The father of the British Navy," and, so far as the 
realisation of the meaning and function of sea power 
is concerned, he has considerable title to the honour. 
Five years after his accession, he built a small flotilla 
of ships and fell upon the Danes on the coast of Dorset, 
routing a squadron of seven ships and taking one. The 
effect of this victory on a small scale was as remarkable 
as that of Salamis on a large. The Danes became 
nervous about their communications and swore a 
peace with Alfred — which they immediately and 
treacherously broke. Both fleets were reinforced, and 
the Danes, landing at the mouth of the Exe, laid siege 
to Exeter. They, in their turn, were blockaded by 
Alfred's fleet in the river. A formidable Danish fleet 
sailed from the mouth of the Thames to raise the block- 
ade; but a storm scattered the ships and destroyed 
half of them. The rest were met by Alfred's fleet and 
utterly defeated. Guthrum, meanwhile, had taken 
Exeter, and Alfred had invested him there. Hearing 
of the destruction of his fleet, the Danish king capitu- 
lated, and marched out of Wessex into Mercia. Since 
the Danes had been allowed to settle in large numbers, 
however, the war continued by land, terminating in 
Alfred's great victory at Ethandune, and the Treaty 
of Wedmore, which established the Danelagh and 
brought Guthrum to Christianity. 

The races with which we are now dealing, however, 
were not traders or agriculturists. They had no idea, 
as the Phoenicians had, of making the sea the great 
pathway for commerce. They were out for plunder. 



54 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

The sea was, for them, a broad line of military com- 
munications by which one swarm succeeded another. 
No treaty which Guthrum could make could keep 
new-comers from pouring in and overrunning the 
boundaries which had been allotted to the Danelagh, 
though these were ample enough, the Danelagh, 
extending well into the Midland shires and having 
for its western limit a chain of forts built at Derby, 
Leicester, Nottingham, and Stamford 

Seven years later came the invasion of Hasting, 
which overran the greater part of the country, and was 
at last scotched, though not killed, by the ingenious 
device of Alfred, who dug channels from the Lea, in 
which Hasting's fleet was lying, to the Thames, and 
so lowered the level of the water that the ships, left 
high and dry, were captured by the rejoicing London- 
ers, and were, doubtless, used in the ensuing years 
in the encounters which took place with Northumbrian 
pirates and the lawless Danes of the Danelagh. Alfred 
died in 901 A.d. In the concluding years of his reign 
the land had peace, and this was entirely due to his 
grasp of the essential condition on which the defence 
of his realm was founded. The Danes settled ashore 
became helpless when cut off from succour by the way 
of the sea. The peace lasted for nearly eighty years 
after Alfred's death, thanks in part to Athelstan's 
great victory of Brunanburh. But his successors 
forgot the lesson of his reign, and allowed the sea power 
of the country to decline. Now came Sweyn and Olaf 
of Norway, and to the Danelagh was added the de- 
grading burden of the Danegeld, or tribute paid to 
the marauders. Ethelred the Unready did, indeed, 
build a great fleet of eight hundred vessels, after he 
had aroused the mortal anger of Sweyn by the mas- 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 55 

sacre of the Danes on St. Brice's Day. But it was 
destroyed by internal dissensions among its leaders. 
Sweyn subdued the country, and England had Danish 
kings for twenty-six years. 

It was not only into Britain that the Northmen 
poured. About the time that Alfred made his treaty 
with Guthrum, Rolf Ganger and his men established 
themselves in the north of France, in what, thence- 
forward, became the Duchy of Normandy. The Franks, 
like the Saxons, were unable to meet them at sea for 
want of a navy, and found it impossible to drive them 
from the land when they had the way of the sea open 
behind them. So Charles the Simple made over the 
Duchy of Normandy to Rolf Ganger, to hold as a fief 
of the Frankish Crown. 

Rolf, or Rollo, had taken part in the piratical forays 
which sailed up the Seine and sacked Paris in the reign 
of Charles the Fat. But the invasion which resulted 
in the settlement of the Norsemen in Normandy was 
no mere piratical raid. A whole population had 
migrated from Norway under the leadership of Rolf, 
to escape loss of liberty, when the whole of the North- 
land was united under the rule of Harold Harfagar, 
the Dane. The Norse, in particular, could not brook 
this incursion into their tribal freedom, and, in this 
exodus of Rolf Ganger and his followers, we have an- 
other instance of one of the prime motives which lead 
to sea power: the claim of men of independent spirit 
to live their own lives. Probably Rolf's following con- 
tained Danes as well as Norsemen, as the inhabitants 
of the Danelagh contained Norsemen as well as Danes. 
The names were somewhat indiscriminately used. 
But, in contradistinction to their compeers, the Nor- 
mans remained warriors and seamen. It is said that 



56 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

they introduced into Brittany the Norse method of 
catching whales with the harpoon, and thus set up a 
lucrative trade on the Biscayan coast. Their sea 
power took them to the Mediterranean, where they 
founded the kingdom of Sicily, and were for centuries 
a thorn in the flesh of Venice, and the stoutest of 
Crusaders. 

The influence of the Norman power on the history 
of the West can hardly be over-estimated. For the 
conquest of England by the Normans and the mastery 
of the Channel demanded by the necessity to main- 
tain communications between the kingdom and the 
duchy led to a realisation of the function of sea power, 
and to the welding of all the elements of the English 
nation. If the claim of the Angevin kings to the crown 
of France gave rise to centuries of warfare between the 
French and the English, the fact that the Norman 
families were for so long the leaders of political and 
social life in this country is the main reason why 
Teutonic Kultur has not altogether prevailed with us, 
and why we are not, at this moment, members of a 
Germanic confederation for the enslavement of the 
world, instead of being ranged with the peoples which 
are fighting for its liberties. No wonder the Germans 
furiously rage together at seeing their "cousins" the 
backbone of the opposition to their ambitions. 

On the other hand, supposing the Romans had 
understood the meaning and functions of sea power, 
and the Romano-British, after the withdrawal of the 
legions, had been able to keep their island free from 
the assaults of the Barbarians, there would have grown 
up in these islands a Celto-Latin race which would 
naturally have linked itself with Gaul, and, thrown 
like a barrier across the path of the northern nations. 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 57 

would certainly have barred the way of discovery and 
expansion to the west. The contrast between Latin 
America (so-called) and Anglo-Saxon America, with 
all the limitations which must be made in the use of 
such terms, will serve to indicate what the result might 
have been on the history of the world. 

Britain is fashioned by nature to be the seaman's 
prize, and only in the hands of a race inured to the 
habit of the sea could she have taken any considerable 
part in the world's affairs. Had the invasion of Sax- 
ons, Angles, and Jutes been postponed until there had 
risen a great and highly organised kingdom in the 
North, she would have been the mere annexe of that 
kingdom. Had the Norman Conquest not been 
achieved until the realm of the Capets was unified, 
an event which would have happened much earlier, 
save for the fact that the dukes of Normandy were 
kings of England, she would have been an annexe of 
France. We have reason, then, to be thankful for 
the slowness of vision which prevented our Saxon 
kings from recognising that sea power was the back- 
bone of their strength. Had they done so, one or more 
of the valuable elements which make up our nation 
would have been wanting. 

Britain is, indeed, the "place where two seas meet." 
The early civilisation of the Mediterranean and the 
rude barbarian of the North found in her, the one its 
latest, the other its earliest goal. We have seen how 
the floods of Romans, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Danes, 
and Normans poured in upon her. When the ingre- 
dients of the English people were ready for the mixing, 
the flood was stayed by the rise of sea power. When 
mixed, they came forth, a peculiar people, to fulfil 
their mission in the world, with an audacity, tenacity. 



58 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

flexibility, and adaptiveness which are not found in the 
same degree elsewhere. We English, of course, have 
the defects of our qualities. The Continent sneers 
at our "insularity," as if an island people could, or 
ought, to avoid being "insular." But his insularity 
does not prevent the ■ Englishman from being first 
without a second in the art of handling the less ad- 
vanced races of mankind over which it is his destiny 
to rule. Whatever he may be at home, in the dark 
places of the earth he is, if insular, not narrow-minded, 
but tolerant, inflexibly just, with a happy way of fitting 
the means to the end. Moreover, when the ingre- 
dients which make the English people were mixed, 
there was added to them the gifted Celtic races which 
fringe the land, in a union which, we trust, will soon 
be rendered complete by the true reconciliation of 
Ireland. 

Of what elements is an Englishman really made? 
The descendants of the Britons, we know, survive 
among us in the inhabitants of Wales and Cornwall. 
Danish blood there unquestionably is in the men of 
the East Coast and almost throughout Lincolnshire. 
In all probability, our great Nelson was of Danish 
descent. It used to be held for gospel, however, that 
the two ingredients of the English nation which so 
entirely swamped all others as to make them negligible 
were the Anglo-Saxon masses and the Norman aristo- 
cracy. The idea that any strain of the old Roman 
blood remained was laughed at. That opinion is no 
longer dogmatically held, nor is it likely to be correct. 
The Roman legions were here for three hundred and 
fifty years. They were not changed every ten or fifteen 
years, as are our regiments in India. One legion at 
least remained in Britain for over two hundred years. 



"A PLACE WHERE TWO SEAS MEET" 59 

The legionaries were not all of Roman race, it is true. 
Many were Iberians and Gauls, Dacians, and other 
subject races of Rome. But, at any rate, there was a 
large element which settled permanently in the land 
and took wives of the daughters of the people. When 
the Saxons came, they plundered and massacred as 
the Romans never did. But, in the beginning, at 
any rate, they were warriors who came without their 
women, and they stayed and settled. The complete 
subjugation of the country was a long business, spread 
over a hundred and fifty years. In that time there 
must have been intermarriage. That the idea was 
familiar to both the Romano-Britons and the Saxons 
is shown by the story of the marriage of Vortigern 
to the daughter of Hengist. Moreover, the persistence 
of Roman place-names in a Saxonised form seems to 
show that the inhabitants of the country were neither 
entirely exterminated nor driven out. Chester, Leices- 
ter, Lancaster survive and, in other cases, the present 
names, while of Latin derivation, differ from those 
by which the cities were known in Roman times. 
Camalodunum became Colchester at some period; 
Venta Belgarum, Winchester; Calleva Atrebatum, Sil- 
chester. These bear the appearance of folk-names, 
bestowed by a Latinised people. But the question is. 
How did the names survive at all, if those who gave 
them were exterminated? 

Then there is the survival of old tradition, and the 
glorification of British heroes. At Silchester there 
lingers to this day the legend of a certain giant, whom 
the country folk call Onion. He threw a great stone 
a mile from the city, and there it stands unto this day. 
It is called the Imp-stone, from the letters I.M.P. 
inscribed upon it, doubtless the first syllable of Im- 



6o SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

perator. But the interesting point is that, when the 
exploration of Silchester was systematically undertaken, 
an inscription was found which proved "Onion" to 
have been a historical personage. He was an ancient 
British king or chieftain. In accordance with the 
usual growth of myth, he has become a giant. But 
who made him a giant? The Saxons would not have 
extolled his prowess. There must have been a surviv- 
ing population by whom the story, growing into legend, 
was passed down. There is no question here of the 
story having been carried to the hills of Scotland and 
Wales and there cherished among an undoubtedly 
British population, as the legend of Arthur may have 
been. It grew and survives on the spot among the 
country folk. It may be claimed, surely, that there 
is evidence here that the Romano-British survived in 
parts of the country other than Wales and Cornwall. 
The events and the elements which have contributed 
to the making of the nation which has wielded sea 
power as no other nation has in history; which has 
made of it a tempered and a balanced weapon with 
which to carry out its destiny, cannot be otherwise 
than germane to the study of sea power. We are the 
heirs of all our past. If we owe our turbulent love of 
liberty and adventure to the Saxons and the Danes, 
our stubbornness of purpose to the Normans, may it 
not be that the inflexible love of law and justice and 
the practical aptitude which drives the road and bridges 
the ford descend to us from that great people who were 
the first conquerors of Britain, and left these same 
marks as their most enduring monument in the world? 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 

We now reach the point at which the last of the 
essential elements which went to the making of the 
English nation was added to it; at which strong cen- 
tral government was substituted for the chaos of Saxon 
times, tempered in turn by the gradual growth of 
civil and political liberties which were won by struggles 
oft-repeated between king, Church, baronage, and 
people. These forces were grouped in different ways, 
from time to time, but were gradually welded and 
fused by the fires of strife behind the closed door which 
was guarded by sea power. It was but slowly that 
the meaning of that vital bulwark began to dominate 
the minds of monarchs and statesmen; still more 
slowly those of the people. But the days of tribal 
incursions are henceforward at an end. Progress in 
freedom coincided with development of maritime 
greatness. The two things are inseparable in the 
British conception of the State. 

Homer, we are told, sometimes nods. It is not 
surprising that our great Shakespeare should occa- 
sionally follow his example. The noble rhapsody of 
John of Gaunt in Richard II. was written a very few 
years after the defeat of the Armada. When Shake- 
speare wrote of 

6i 



62 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

"This precious stone set in a silver sea, 
Which serves it in the office of a wall, 
Or as a moat defensive to a house, 
Against the envy of less happier lands," 

he must have had the great deliverance in his mind. 
He speaks of England "bound in with the triumphant 
sea"; but there is not the faintest allusion to the men 
and ships which secured her safety. Of course Shake- 
speare was not writing a naval treatise. But the 
description of the sea as "a moat defensive to a house" 
is a very bad comparison save on the supposition that 
the enemy has no ships in which to cross it. The bold, 
bad baron who attacked his neighbour's moated keep 
did not, as a rule, drag a flotilla with him, and an at- 
tempt to swim the moat in casque and hauberk would 
naturally lead to a visit to the freshwater equivalent 
of Davy Jones's locker. With drawbridge up and port- 
cullis down, the besieged could sleep as soundly in his 
bed as did Sir Robert de Shurland when his stronghold 
was attacked by the Posse Comitatus of Kent, though 
counter-attack eventually became necessary in that 
historic instance. 

But the aggressor from over-sea is, ex hypothesi, 
provided with a fleet. Being able to move in secret, 
he can choose his point of attack. The total defending 
force may be ten or twenty times that of the invaders, 
but it cannot watch the whole coast at one and the 
same time and hope to be able to concentrate in suffi- 
cient force at the point where the attempt at landing 
is to be actually made. We saw this when Julius 
Csesar, finding a great concentration of Britons to 
oppose his landing at Dover, moved his point of 
attack to Deal, and got ashore there before the de- 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 63 

fenders could bring up their forces. No frontier is so 
unsafe as a sea frontier, unless the defender is in supe- 
rior strength at sea, for almost all land frontiers have 
natural or artificial strong places which can be held 
with a minimum of force, while the invader is tied to 
the roads or railroads for his line of advance. To prove 
this, it is only necessary to look at the war map of 
to-day, and to consider the effect of the Carpathians, 
the Alps, the Pripet Marshes, the inundations of the 
Yser, the Wilderness of Sin, and the floods of the 
Tigris, alternating with the drought of Mesopotamia. 
So many lines of advance are closed by natural obsta- 
cles that the defenders can foresee the points of attack 
and concentrate their forces accordingly. But the sea 
has no natural obstacles. It is a broad, level highway, 
and the army which can use the sea unopposed is free 
from the great bane of all armies moving by land: 
that they have to defend and maintain long trains of 
transport. Even when it is placed on shore, an army 
carried by sea can often shorten its lines of communi- 
cation by judicious co-operation with the fleet. 

But a defending navy does not best fulfil its function 
by hugging the shore and waiting to be attacked. That 
is a fallacy which has persisted since Salamis. It 
has given rise to such monstrosities as coast-defence 
ships, on which we, like other nations, have wasted 
millions. Coast-defence ships are merely the Martello 
tower idea, transferred from the land to the water. 
Drake pleaded in vain for leave to "impeach" the 
Spaniards off their own ports. Nelson laid down 
the golden rule that "our first line of defence is close 
to the enemy's coast." But the delusion is not yet 
dead. It cropped up after the German bombardment 
of East Coast towns. 



64 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

A third delusion is that defence can be secured with 
an inferior navy. That, in some mysterious way, a 
"fleet in being" which is not strong enough to fight 
will keep the enemy away from the shore. Under 
certain geographical conditions, it is true that an in- 
ferior navy may exercise considerable influence. It 
would be foolish, for instance, to ignore the influence 
which the German fleet has exercised. The short 
coast-line of Germany, and the possession of a back 
door at Kiel, together with the difficulty of forcing an 
entrance into the Baltic, make the position of our chief 
enemy to resemble rather a land-position than the 
broad and accessible path of the sea. The "wet 
triangle" and the narrow passages of the Sound and 
the Belts are comparable to river estuaries. The 
value of the German fleet rests upon the possibility 
that, under conceivable circumstances, it might obtain 
a local and temporary superiority in one sea or the 
other. Moreover, in estimating superiority or in- 
feriority, it is unsafe to reckon numbers only. The 
question cannot be determined until it has been put 
to the test of war. Efficiency, the habit of the sea, 
superior resources, may make up for lack of numbers. 
The Japanese were inferior to the Russians in 1904, 
by the book. Yet the Russian squadron in Port Arthur 
was powerless to prevent them from landing both in 
Korea and the Shan-tung Peninsula. But such modi- 
fications as have been here noted do not affect the 
general principle. If a nation elects, or is compelled, 
to place its faith in sea power for its defence, then it 
must see to it that its navy remains indisputably 
supreme in all respects to any possible assailant or 
probable combination of enemies. 

If Harold, the son of Godwin, had grasped these 



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THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 65 

points, the last great invasion of this country, nearly 
nine hundred years ago, might never have taken place. 
He had a fleet, and, at other times, made good use of it. 
For instance, he beat back the first attempt of his re- 
bellious brother, Tostig, on the sea. But when the 
crisis came in 1066, his fleet kept its ports, thinking, 
perhaps, to defend England off her own shores, instead 
of "impeaching" the Norman Duke off his. Nor was 
any attempt made to meet the armada of Harald 
Hardrada and Tostig by sea. It is likely enough that 
the Saxon fleet was not strong enough to fulfil the 
double task. But it was employed on neither. The 
army was made the first line of defence. Harold 
marched north to give battle to Harald Hardrada and 
Tostig, apparently in the hope that William would 
remain weather-bound until his return. He accom- 
plished his immediate purpose at the battle of Stam- 
ford Bridge, where both the invaders were slain. But 
ere he could reach London again the Normans were 
ashore in Sussex. It must be remembered that Harold's 
fleet was not a royal navy. The ships were furnished 
by London and what were afterwards known as the 
Cinque Ports. Their owners were not required to give 
continuous service, but only for a certain number of 
days in the year. Very possibly, these had expired 
before William got a fair wind which brought him to 
Pevensey and the field of Senlac. 

Being now both King of England and Duke of Nor- 
mandy, William learned of necessity something of 
the function of sea power. The rebellion of his son, 
Robert Curt-hose, and other disturbances in his Duchy 
alternated with outbreaks both of the Saxons and of 
his own barons in England. The constant passage of 
large bodies of men between the two countries became 



66 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

an imperative necessity, and so continued during the 
reigns of all the Norman and Angevin kings. Sea 
power, at first a matter of transport only, now became 
a serious preoccupation to the rulers of England. The 
use of the sea, however, was not all on one side. There 
was much cross-raiding. Sometimes an English army 
was conveyed to France ; sometimes a French army was 
landed in this country. But gradually, as the 
true English nation was formed and became conscious 
of itself, it tended to realise that its own shores might 
be rendered inviolate by predominance at sea. The 
Anglo-Normans began to regard the Channel as their 
highway and the opposite coast as their frontier. 

The centre of power soon shifted from Normandy 
to England. It was on the island, not on the conti- 
nent, that the descendants of William the Conqueror 
consolidated their strength for the great struggle with 
their Frankish suzerains. And thus they made a 
nation. An English party arose, led by the Norman 
barons themselves. Stephen Langton, the Church- 
man, and Simon de Montfort, the Frenchman, stood 
boldly for the rights of Englishmen against intrigues 
to make of England a province of Rome or a satrapy 
of France. The greatest of our early English kings 
had to meet the opposition of his feudal vassals when he 
wished to use English power to further his designs on 
France without the consent of Englishmen. It has 
never been the right of the Kings of England, said 
Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, to force their vassals to serve 
in Flanders. "By God, Sir Earl," exclaimed the King, 
with a profane pun, "you shall either go or hang!" 
"By God, Sir King," replied the Earl, "I will neither 
go nor hang!" And he neither went nor was hanged. 
Eventually the kings themselves came to rely on the 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 67 

English bowmen rather than upon the Norman chivalry 
for their armies, for the latter had kindred whom they 
would not harm and estates on which they feared re- 
prisals, among the king's enemies. It was the cloth- 
yard shafts of the English which gave victory to Edward 
III. and Henry V. The English kings, no longer dukes 
of Normandy, thanks to the merciful incompetence of 
John Lackland, yet held a bridgehead at Calais. The 
long struggle was fought out upon the soil of France, 
while the English nation consolidated itself behind the 
fleets and the armies. In the end, fortunately for 
our future, the hopeless attempt to subdue the French 
nation failed. All France was lost save Calais, and 
then Calais itself. But England was ready for her 
mission in the world. She was ready to expand, 
first into Great Britain, then into the British Empire. 
But as yet her sea power was insecurely based. In 
Norman and Plantagenet times, the sailor was scarcely 
more than a ferryman. His function was to carry 
armies, though his came to involve the corollary that 
he should prevent the carriage of the enemy's armies. 
The impulse of the nation, as a whole, was not yet 
towards the sea. Nevertheless, a true conception of 
naval strategy and tactics was beginning to emerge. 
In 1215, Louis the Dauphin was in London, called there 
by the barons who were in revolt against John. But 
the arrogance of the French roused the spirit of the 
English people, and associations were formed which 
equipped ships and continually raided the communica- 
tions of Louis in the Channel. John died in the fol- 
lowing year, and, in 12 17, Louis was utterly defeated 
and his army destroyed under the walls of Lincoln. 
An armament of eighty galleys was fitted out at Calais 
for his relief, commanded by a noted pirate, named 



68 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Eustace the Monk. Hubert de Burgh, the Justiciary, 
collected forty ships of the Cinque Ports, with which 
he gave battle. The English manoeuvred for the 
"weather gauge," as it came to be called later: that 
is to say, they got to windward. They then hurled 
quicklime into the air and, thus blinding their enemies, 
fell on board them with such good will that only fifteen 
of their ships escaped. Eustace himself was found 
hiding in the hold of his vessel, and his head was struck 
off by Richard Fitzroy, a bastard son of John. This 
fight is notable for the evidence it gives of the insight 
of Hubert de Burgh. When he went afloat and took 
command of the fleet, he was holding Dover Castle, 
always looked upon as the postern gate of England. 
So fully did he recognise the desperate chances against 
him that he gave orders before he set forth that Dover 
Castle was not to be surrendered even to save his life, 
should he be taken prisoner. But nothing blinded 
him to the fact that, if England was to be saved, the 
foe must be met at sea. His was the policy of the 
wooden walls as against that of the Martello towers, 
and eternal honour crowns the name of Hubert de 
Burgh for this reason, though not for this alone. 
"This victory," it has been said, "settled for ever 
the question how England could best be defended. 
From this time forward we have produced no great 
naval or military leader who has not placed his trust 
in the navy as the first line of defence when invasion 
threatened the country." Yet many of our historians 
do not mention it at all. 

Our two warrior kings, Edward III. and Henry V., 
both made full and correct use of sea power. In 1340, 
Philip of France lay at the mouth of the Scheldt with a 
great armament consisting of nineteen ships of unusual 



I 








The Capture of an Algerine Corsair 

From an old woodcut 




The Baltic Fleet in 1855, " The Duke of Wellington " 

From a drawing by E. Weedon, In the lUuslraled London Nctvs, iSsS 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 69 

dimensions, two hundred other ships of war, and a host 
of smaller vessels. His object was the invasion of 
England. Hastily collecting all the ships he could 
from the Cinque Ports and the south generally, Edward 
sailed to "impeach" the enemy off his own port. Thus 
early, the Scheldt had become a "pistol pointed at the 
heart of England." The whole of his Council opposed 
Edward in this matter. "You are all in a conspiracy 
against me!" he exclaimed impatiently. "I shall go. 
Those who are afraid may stay at home." The battle 
was fought off Sluys, at the mouth of the river. The 
French drew up their array across the passage. Ed- 
ward at first put out to sea as if to decline an engage- 
ment. He was, however, but manoeuvring to avoid 
the sun, which shone full in the eyes of his men. His 
purpose gained, he bore down on the French with wind 
and tide in his favour. Every ship in the first division 
of the enemy was captured, and, at this opportune 
moment. Lord Morley arrived with a fleet from the 
northern counties. Joining forces, the combined fleet 
fell upon the second and third lines of Philip's ships. 
The French were seized with panic and jumped over- 
board. The fourth line, consisting of sixty ships, 
made a brave resistance, but was overpowered. With 
the exception of a few stragglers, the whole French 
fleet remained in the hands of the victors. Edward 
lost two ships which were sunk, and about four thousand 
men. The French losses in men are said to have 
amounted to nearly thirty thousand. 

This great sea fight, of far more consequence to 
England than Crecy or Poitiers, is usually dismissed 
by historians in a few lines and treated merely as the 
prelude of the land campaign. Nevertheless, Sluys 
settled the question whether the war should be fought 



70 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

on the soil of France or England. Edward grasped the 
full significance of his victory and claimed the title 
of "The King of the Sea," which none disputed with 
him. He insisted that foreign ships in the Channel 
should vail their topsails to his flag in acknowledgment 
of his sovereignty. The custom prevailed for near 
three hundred years, and, as we shall see, was the overt 
cause of the first Dutch War. Sluys was not the only 
sea battle in which Edward commanded his fleet. In 
1348 he attacked a Spanish fleet from the Biscayan 
coast which had joined the French and was harrying 
his communications and the English trade in the 
Channel. The battle, which was commonly known as 
that of Espagnols-sur-Mer, was fought within sight 
of the town of Winchelsea, and resulted in a complete 
victory for the English, fourteen of the enemy vessels 
being sunk. 

The use made by Henry V. of his navy was strategical, 
and led to no engagement of first-rate importance. 
But it is, none the less, extremely interesting. The 
army with which the King embarked at Southampton 
on August 2, 141 5, cannot have been fewer in number 
than 20,000 men. In six weeks it had lost more than 
half its number from wounds and disease under the 
walls of Harfleur. With 9000 men Henry set out to 
march from Harfleur, which had surrendered, to Calais. 
It was a piece of bravado, for his intention was to re- 
embark his weakened army at Calais and carry it home. 
This extraordinary flank march through a hostile 
country, in face of an enemy at least ten times his 
strength, was made possible by the fact that his fleet 
moved parallel with him along the coast and that he 
was supplied from it. All went well until he was 
strongly opposed at Abbeville at the mouth of the 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 71 

Somme. He was then compelled to turn inland and 
to follow the course of the river along its left bank until 
he could find a ford. He crossed near Peronne, in the 
heart of the great battlefield of 19 16, and then, turning 
northward again, he met and utterly defeated the 
French at Agincourt on the Ternoise, where the Dau- 
phin and the Constable of France attempted to bar 
his way to Calais. His strategy may be compared 
with that of the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular 
War, when, marching from Lisbon to the Pyrenees, he 
shifted his base from the former port to San Sebastian. 
Little British armies have often been made to go a 
long way by the skilful use of sea communications. 
Henry, of course, had complete command of the Chan- 
nel, though, in the following year, the French disputed 
it with him. They blockaded the mouth of the Seine 
and nearly reduced the English garrison of Harfleur 
by starvation. But they were defeated by the Duke 
of Bedford and the siege was raised. 

What was the Navy which stood Edward III. and 
Harry of Monmouth in such good stead? The ques- 
tion is not very easily answered. It has been asserted 
that Henry V. was the first king to establish a war- 
navy, which now became separated from the merchant 
service. This is certainly not the case. The separation 
from the merchant service did not take place till many 
years later. England, indeed, had very little sea-borne 
trade at this time. The carriers of the world were the 
Hanseatic cities (of which later), the Venetians and 
the Genoese. England was still in the agricultural 
stage, feeding her own people, and using the surplus 
and the products of her fisheries to purchase luxuries 
from abroad. London was a great entrepot, but the 
entrepot trade was carried on in foreign ships. The 



72 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

establishment of the Staples and the grant of Charters, 
such as the Charter of Merchants by Edward I. in 1303, 
which were devices to enable the kings to get money 
without appealing to the Estates, acted in restraint 
of foreign trade. On the other hand, the navy was not 
yet the King's Navy. At least, the kings maintained 
no permanent fleet. The feudal idea prevailed that 
the dwellers by the seashore shotild give service by sea, 
as the tenants in capite, their sub-tenants and retainers 
gave it by land. In return, those who provided ships 
and men had certain privileges. The most famous of 
these corporations was the Cinque Ports, originally 
the five ports of Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney, 
and Hastings. Afterwards the number increased to 
seven by addition of Rye and Winchelsea. The de- 
fence of the realm by sea, and, more especially of the 
communications with Normandy, thus centred in 
the narrow gate of the Straits of Dover, a strategical 
position which has maintained its importance ever 
since. Whether the threat has come from the South 
or the North, the fleet in the Downs has always been 
one of the bulwarks of England. 

The first Charter of the Cinque Ports was granted 
by Edward I. Under it the five towns were bound to 
furnish fifty-seven ships for fifteen days in the year, 
and victualling for others. They received in exchange 
their own civil and criminal jurisdiction, exemption 
from taxation and tolls, and the right to assemble in 
their own parliament, which sat at Shepway, near 
Hythe. To this day the Corporation has its Courts 
of Guestling and Brotherhood, though their functions' 
are ornamental. (In point of fact, however, the Cinque 
Ports possessed special rights and owed special duties 
long before the date of their first Charter. In Domes- 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 73 

day Book the contingent of Dover is fixed at twenty- 
ships, and those of other towns in proportion. There 
are even traces of their obhgation to furnish a fleet 
as far back as the reign of Edward the Confessor. By 
the Charter of Edward I. the Warden of the Cinque 
Ports was Admiral of the Coast from Dover to Cornwall. 
This, however, was subsequently modified, and Ports- 
mouth was made a separate command. 

There were, besides, other Admiralties and other 
obligations to furnish ships. London, for instance, 
was required to furnish a contingent, known as "ships 
of the Tower." This was the nearest approach to a 
Royal Navy in existence in pre-Tudor times. The 
Lord Mayor was Admiral of the Thames. One stout 
fellow, Sir John Philpot, after whom Philpot Lane is 
named, actually commanded at sea. A notable Scot- 
tish pirate, one John Mercer, was ravaging the traffic 
in the North Sea, and Richard II., who was busy with 
his own none too prosperous affairs, made no attempt 
to put an end to his depredations. Said sturdy Sir 
John, "We must catch the wasp which stings us, and 
do our best to smoke his kindred from their nest. The 
nobles who should defend us are laggers and excuse- 
makers. They do not feel the prick of this thorn as 
we merchants do, and so they neglect to pull it out. 
But, an they like it or not, the thorn shall out, and, 
if they will not attempt it, why, we must." Despite 
its confused metaphor, this eloquent passage puts the 
interrelation of sea power and commerce in a nutshell. 
Sir John collected a fleet of fourteen ships and manned 
it with a thousand picked men. He found the pirate 
cruising in the Channel with twenty-one ships; fought 
him to a standstill; captured or destroyed sixteen 
vessels, and brought three hundred prisoners, including 



74 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Mercer himself, back to London. The King, however, 
considered that Philpot had taken too much upon him- 
self and placed him on his trial. He was honourably 
acquitted; the King kept his prisoners, and eventually 
pocketed their ransom. The King's sovereignty was 
vindicated and his pockets filled; the merchants 
traded in peace, and "Box and Cox were satisfied." 
Sir John afterwards placed his fleet at the King's 
disposal, as was his bounden duty and service. 

Besides the Warden of the Cinque Ports and the 
Lord Mayor, there were Admirals of the North and 
the West. The functions of these officials appear to 
have been less to command at sea than to exercise 
the administrative and judicial functions which now 
belong to the Admiralty. They had, however, to 
furnish a contingent of ships to the King's service 
as Lord Morley did at Sluys. 

The idea of local defence runs strongly through all 
these arrangements: an idea which is unsound accord- 
ing to the more developed strategical theories of our 
own times. But the enemy to be met was less often 
a national enemy than one or other of the pirates which 
then infested the seas. Moreover, the communication 
of intelligence was slow and uncertain, and prompt 
action often necessary. Nevertheless, we can see the 
strong tendency towards centralisation and the firm 
hold which our English kings kept over the abuses of 
the feudal system in the repression of private war, 
as evidenced in the case of Sir John Philpot. If the 
ships were not the King's ships, he was, nevertheless, 
as effectively the Overlord of their owners as he was of 
the tenants in capite to whom he forbade the practice 
of sub-infeudation. 

The forces wielded by these subordinate Admiralties 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 75 

no doubt consisted largely of small craft, manned by 
the hardy fishermen of the coast. But the contingents 
of ships furnished by the Cinque Ports must have 
included bigger vessels, some engaged in trade with the 
Continent in time of peace, and some laid up for the 
King's use. There is, however, ground for the sus- 
picion that they were occasionally used on enterprises 
not easily distinguishable from piracy, which were 
disguised under the specious name of "reprisals." 
In such days as those of Henry III., Edward II., and 
Richard II., when the central power was loosened, 
"Pirates of Penzance" may have had an actual 
existence. 

The feudal obligations of the Cinque Ports, the 
City of London, and the Admiralties of the North and 
West do not, however, account for the whole of the 
great armaments which our kings sometimes took to 
sea. The numbers vary from the two hundred ships 
with which Edward III. fought the Battle of Sluys to 
the twelve hundred which he mustered in the Channel 
four years later. The ships can hardly have been 
men-of-war as we understand the term. They had 
certain distinctive features, it is true, such as the fore- 
castle from which the men-at-arms fought, of which 
the name survives, though the thing itself has vanished, 
and fighting-tops for archers on the masts. These 
were fitted on ships hired for the purpose of war, and 
often from abroad. But the ship herself only became 
a real instrument of warfare when she became a float- 
ing gun-carriage. Artillery was first used, so far as 
our own waters were concerned, by the Spaniards in 
an engagement fought by them and the French against 
an inferior English force off La Rochelle in 1377. The 
Venetians used it about the same time in the Mediter- 



76 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

ranean. It was more easily adapted to oared galleys 
than to sailing ships. It had not been generally adopted 
by the English even in Henry V. 's time, and it was not 
made the primary armament of warships till the Tudor 
era. That, then, must be regarded as the epoch when 
the Royal Navy really had birth. 

At this point it is convenient to say something about 
that famous institution the Hansa, or Hanseatic 
League, through which the Germanic peoples made 
their first bid for sea power. It has been mentioned 
that Edward I. granted a Charter of Merchants in 
1303. The Hansa was, at that date, already estab- 
lished in London in the Steelyard, where Cannon 
Street Station now stands. The Easterlings, as the 
merchants were called, had begun to acquire those 
privileges which eventually gave them an alderman 
of their own and the right to follow immediately after 
the Lord Mayor and Corporation in all civic processions. 
They had establishments also in Boston and elsewhere. 
They were fostered by the kings, to whom they lent 
money or paid toll. Their trading system was similar 
to that of the Phoenicians in earlier days and to that 
of the English and the Dutch in the East Indies after- 
wards. That is to say, they established what were 
later called "factories" in England, in Flanders, and 
in the Scandinavian countries. The parent cities 
were scattered throughout the Germanic Empire, 
and they were not all maritime, for Cologne and even 
Cracow, Dinant, and Gottingen were, at one time or 
another, Hanse towns. But the majority were situated 
on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic, and of 
these Liibeck and Hamburg were the most considerable. 
Their prosperity was founded upon the herring. They 
bought the greater part of the catch off our shores; 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 77 

but the main part of their supply came from the Sound, 
where herring swarmed during the fourteenth and 
fifteenth centuries so that at certain seasons, it is said, 
"they raised boats out of the water." The Liibeck 
merchants set up estabHshments for catching and 
curing the fish at Skanor and Falsterbo, on the south- 
em tip of the Swedish Peninsula. They had another 
important establishment at Wisby in the island of 
Gothland. 

So far, the Hansa were peaceful traders, collecting 
the merchandise of northern Europe in exchange for 
their catch of herring, and selling it in England, France, 
Spain, and the Netherlands. But in 1248 the herring 
involved the League in war. Liibeck, in retaliation 
for some alleged infringement of fishing rights, attacked 
Denmark and plundered Copenhagen. A century 
later, the great conflict between the League as a whole 
and the Danes under King Waldemar IV. occurred. 
Wisby was sacked by the Danes, and a fleet of fifty- 
two Hanseatic ships, incautiously denuded of their 
men to take part in the siege of Helsingor (Elsinore) 
was attacked by Waldemar and destroyed. However, 
in 1367 the Hansa met in Cologne and agreed to raise 
a new fleet and army. Making alHance with the 
Swedes, they again seized Copenhagen and ravaged the 
islands of Laaland, Moen, and Falster. Norway sup- 
ported Denmark, but the superior sea power of the 
Hansa enabled the Swedes to bring their military force 
to bear, and the Danes were forced to sign the humiU- 
ating Peace of Stralsund in 1370. The Danish realm 
consists in the main of islands, and we see once more 
that islands can only be successfully defended by a 
fleet strong enough to keep open sea-communications 
and to deny their use to the enemy. For lack of this 



78 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

power, the aid of the Norwegians was useless to Den- 
mark, while that given by the Swedes to the Hansa 
was decisive. 

After the Peace of Stralsund, the Hansa took to 
piracy. Bodies were formed, known as the "Victual- 
ling Brothers" or the "Equal Sharers" (the Germans 
have always been pastmasters of the art of finding 
fair names for rank iniquity). These established 
strongholds at Wisby and Emden, and plundered all 
and sundry. Complications with England followed, 
in which the whole League was involved. It was noted 
that, in the negotiations, the League endeavoured "to 
get everything and give nothing," the right of the 
German to possess the earth being already a Teutonic 
article of faith. Matters culminated in an actual 
conflict in 141 7, when the English seized a number of 
Hanse ships returning from the Bay of Biscay. Again, 
in 145 1, a fleet fitted out by the East Coast ports took 
one hundred and eight ships in the Channel. A long 
and desultory conflict followed during the years when 
the central Power in England was embarrassed by the 
Wars of the Roses. It is hardly distinguishable from 
piracy on either side. The Steelyard was stormed by 
the Londoners; but the Hansa was too useful to the 
kings to allow of the expulsion of the Easterlings for 
the present. Their privileges were confirmed by 
Edward IV. and Henry VII. However, in the reign of 
Elizabeth, they filled up the cup of their iniquity by 
trading with the enemy during the war of the Spanish 
Armada. Drake and Norris seized sixty of their ships 
in the Tagus. Philip of Spain retorted by obtaining 
a decree from the Emperor expelling all Englishmen 
from Germany, so the masterful Elizabeth bundled 
the Easterlings out of London bag and baggage. But 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 79 

a worse misfortune awaited the Hansa. About the 
same time, the wayward herring, for some reason, 
deserted the Sound for the waters of the English and 
Dutch coasts. The foundation of Hanseatic prosperity- 
was cut away, and, in its place Amsterdam, as has 
been said, was "founded upon the herring." It may 
be noted, as bearing upon German complaints to-day, 
that the Hansa, in the heyday of its power, insisted on 
the principle that "hostile ships make hostile goods, 
and hostile goods make hostile ships." 

The first great naval Power of northern Europe, 
subsequent to Viking times, was German. It was 
built upon trade and it vanished with the chief source 
of its trade, just when the maritime stars of England 
and Holland were rising. But it had an instructive 
history. Politically, the Hansa was a loose confedera- 
tion of cities, united for trade and defence, though 
separated from each other geographically. It was held 
together by the sea, the power to use which was secured 
by the maritime towns, supported by subsidies from 
the rest. It dispensed with any rigid political bond, 
though it had its own Parliament, where common 
policy was discussed from time to time as necessity 
arose. It was driven to fight for one reason, and for 
one only: to maintain its sea-communications with the 
lands with which it traded and its right to use the sea. 
The Hansa navy was in no sense the arm of an organised 
Power. Yet it obtained so complete an ascendency 
in the Baltic and North Sea that Gustavus Vasa, the 
great King of Sweden, declared that the three Scandi- 
navian Crowns "remained small wares of the Hansa 
up to the sixteenth century." Hanseatic sea power was 
securely based on the interests of the citizens. 

Perhaps the greatest, though undesigned, work of 



8o SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

this remarkable Confederation was that it taught 
England to become a Sea Power in a similar sense. 
The shrewd, money-loving Henry VII. did not fail to 
perceive that the Easterlings were absorbing two profits 
— ^that for trading, and that for carrying. The discovery 
of America opened men's eyes to the immense advant- 
age of our geographical position, and the cessation of 
civil strife set free the minds of rulers to consider the 
affairs of peace. The economic position of the country 
was greatly altered by the Black Death and the con- 
sequent and gradual substitution of hired labour for 
villeinage. The capture of Constantinople by the 
Turks, and other causes which will be dealt with in the 
next chapter, put an end to the monopoly of the Eastern 
trade which Venice had so long enjoyed. The result 
was that private adventurers became busy fitting out 
argosies for trade, and the kings took in hand the 
establishment of the fighting force by which that trade 
was to be protected and its opportunities increased. 
That, perhaps, was not their sole intention. Dynastic 
considerations, usually the most powerful with more 
or less absolute monarchs, compelled this course. 
The baronage had been practically destroyed by the 
Wars of the Roses and the proscriptions and attainders 
which followed; the feudal system as an engine of 
defence was at an end; there were pretenders abroad 
who would not look in vain for assistance from enemies 
or rivals of this country. So Henry VII. built him ships 
of war. It was about the only thing, save architec- 
ture, on which he could be induced to spend money. 

But it is rather his greater son, Henry VIII., who 
deserves the title of "Father of the British Navy," 
claimed for so many. He put the hoards extorted 
by Empson and Dudley to the best use ill-gotten 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 8i 

wealth has ever been put to. Extravagant as he was 
in his personal expenditure, he laid aside each year 
a certain sum for the building and equipment of ships. 
He was himself no mean navigator, and delighted to 
go aboard his ships at Portsmouth with the whistle, 
the badge, in those days, of admiral's rank, hung 
round his neck. He appointed a Controller of the 
Navy under the Lord High Admiral, thus separating 
administration from command and initiating the Navy 
Office or Board, which long co-existed with the Board 
of Admiralty, after the office of Lord High Admiral 
had been placed in commission. He also founded 
Trinity House at Deptford, committing to the care of 
"the Brethren of the Sacred Trinity" the supervision 
of pilotage and the buoying and lighting of the coast. 

Among the ships which King Henry built were the 
Henri Grace-d-Dieu, or Great Harry, of 1500 tons, the 
Trinity Sovereign and Henry Imperial, each of 1000 tons, 
the Gabriel Royal of 800 tons, the Great Galley of 700 
tons, and the Mary Rose of 600 tons. The fleet which 
left Portsmouth in Holy Week of 15 12 for the war with 
France is said to have numbered eighty vessels and to 
have carried over 20,000 men. It was well armed with 
serpentines, cannon and demi-cannon, sakers, culverins, 
murderers, and all the rest of the quaintly-named 
ordnance of the day, some throwing shot as heavy as 
were used at Trafalgar nearly three hundred years 
afterwards. These ships were designed for a regular 
sea-fight, although boarding, then and for many years 
later, was contemplated as the decisive stage of the 
action. They were no longer merely platforms for 
men-at-arms to fight upon. 

With this armament, Henry kept command of the 
Channel. The French were driven into Brest after 



82 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

a fight which was, tactically, indecisive. The Eng- 
lish followed them through the Gotdet Passage, and 
then occurred a strange incident which has never been 
satisfactorily explained, but which cost the life of the 
Commander-in-Chief, Sir Edward Howard. He ap- 
pears to have boarded the French flagship which was 
lying inside the harbour, with the intention of cutting 
her out. He was left on deck almost single-handed, 
the French throwing off the grappling-chains before 
his whole crew could get on board. Howard, seeing 
himself doomed, threw his whistle, the badge of his 
rank, overboard, and was shortly afterwards hurled 
into the sea. His adversary, Pregent, or "Prior John," 
as the English called him, a notorious corsair, re- 
covered the body, and salted the heart as a "souvenir." 
His motive was not "f rightfulness," as one would 
hastily conclude. He honestly wished to honour a 
-doughty foe. 

Henry VIII. had his ups and downs by sea. The 
English coast was repeatedly raided, despite his general 
ascendency. As Mahan has said, and as recent experi- 
ence has proved, no superiority, however great, can 
wholly prevent such enterprises. On one occasion the 
fishing hamlet of Brighthelmstone, not yet become 
"Doctor Brighton," was burned. In a later war, the 
French sent a great fleet to the Isle of Wight, which 
actually sailed into Spithead. Henry's fleet on the 
spot was much inferior in numbers, and, to make mat- 
ters worse, the Mary Rose the "beauty ship" of the 
squadron, as was our lost Queen Mary, capsized and 
sank. Loud was the laughter of the French. But a 
sudden shift of wind prevented them from making 
use of their advantage. Night came on, and, in the 
morning, to the astonishment of the English, the French 



THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 83 

fleet had disappeared. So impressed were the pious 
minds of EngHsh churchmen that two suffrages were 
embodied in the Liturgy to keep the event in remem- 
brance : 

"Give peace in our time, O Lord!" 

"Because there is none other that fighteth for us: 
But only Thou, God." 

It was to this fleet also that the password, "God 
Save the King!" with the countersign, "Long to reign 
over us!" was given. Herein is supposed to be the 
germ of the National Anthem. 

It is once more to be noticed that the chroniclers of 
the time and later historians tell us very little of the 
means by which the English obtained their mastery 
at sea. The battle off Brest was an indecisive affair, 
in which we lost the Regent, one of the most powerful 
vessels of the fleet. But the French sought refuge in 
their harbours, and, during the rest of the war of 1512- 
13, only essayed "tip-and-run" raids. The moral 
appears to be that the side which will not fight is 
beaten, and that all the advantages go to that which 
seeks battle, even without a struggle. In other words, 
sea power is power over communications at sea. 

With Henry VIII. 's reign began the real era of Eng- 
land's maritime greatness. Kings and people had 
learned their lesson as to the true basis of defence. 
The introduction of cannon, the discoveries of new 
lands and of new sea routes, the altered economic 
condition of the country, the abolition of restraints on 
trade, even the personal rule of the Tudors, all helped 
to foster the growing disposition of the English people 
to turn towards the sea. The use of sea power by the 
earlier kings to maintain their communications with 
France had accustomed the public mind to the idea of 



84 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

a fighting navy. The real, solid foundation of sea 
power was now supplied. The growth of commerce 
went hand in hand with efficiency in naval war. Each 
supported the other. The King's ships kept the Nar- 
row Seas secure; but the merchantman went armed on 
his great adventures beyond. Therefore, in time of 
peril, he was a valuable auxiliary to the naval force. 
The English became in greater and greater degree a 
seafaring people. And there was soon to come a wave 
of enthusiasm, partly bom of rehgious antagonisms, 
partly of intolerance of restraint, which lent weight 
and vigour to these impulses. These things, and much 
else, came to fruition in the Elizabethan age. 



imtvw^ -T sPiM 




CHAPTER V 

THE MEDITERRANEAN IN THE MIDDLE AGES 

It has been truly said that the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean are strewn with the wreckage of Empire. The 
Pharaohs, the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the 
Greeks and Macedonians, the Romans, Vandals, 
Saracens have in turn borne sway and vanished. The 
Turks are in a fair way to vanish. Some have left 
their monuments, some their literature and art, and 
all have left abiding lessons to those who study the 
meaning and the function of sea power. The period 
we now have to trace is one in which ancient civilisa- 
tions were impinged upon by Barbarism from the 
North and from the East; in which religious zeal or 
fanaticism moved the nations to almost continuous 
war, and in which Christendon, divided against itself, 
gave ground before the fierce onslaughts of Islam. 
Thence emerged a new contest between East and West 
which ended in the bounds of the East being set further 
to the westward than in the last great incursion in the 
days of Xerxes, Nevertheless, the tide was stemmed, 
and stemmed mainly by sea power. The bounds of 
the Turkish Empire in northern Africa were set where 
the bounds of Cambyses' Empire were set, for Ottoman 
control beyond the borders of Egypt was little more 
than nominal. On the European side, however, the 

85 



86 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

sword of the Faithful bit deeper. It was only under 
the walls of Vienna that the plague was stayed. The 
failure of the Byzantine Empire and of the other States 
which should have supported it in the task of holding 
back the Turkish onslaught are at the root of the troubles 
of to-day, for it is the heritage of the Turk, derived 
by conquest from Byzantium, which has stirred most 
deeply the cupidity of the Teutonic rulers. 

The history of sea power in the Mediterranean 
during the Middle Ages can best be understood by 
following the long, tortuous, but withal glorious, 
history of Venice. It is the story of perhaps the most 
completely organized naval State the world has ever 
seen. Everything in that paradise of merchant princes 
gave way to trade. All policy was founded on the 
acquisition of wealth, and had that for its end. And 
the Venetians, in consequence, had both the virtues 
and vices of traders. They were punctilious in keep- 
ing the letter of a bargain, but not equally scrupulous 
about its spirit. They indulged in little idealism. It 
was impossible to sway them by sentiment. But, 
being sea-traders, they were of high spirit and tena- 
cious of their ends. At last, they lapsed into the 
torpor of wealth, and allowed themselves to be undone 
by circumstances which they would have overcome, 
had they retained their early stiffness of purpose — 
namely, the discovery of America and the route to 
India round the Cape. 

Venice was founded in the fifth century of our era 
by a band of fugitives who fled from the Huns. They 
were of the most stiff-necked breed of the Italian peoples, 
and they found among the lagoons at the head of the 
Adriatic an abode easily defensible and as easily 
adapted to the acquisition of wealth and power. From 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 87 

small beginnings, merely punting from island to island, 
carrying fish and other produce ; then gradually extend- 
ing their range to fetch corn and wine from Apulia; 
afterwards, pushing their trade down the narrow waters 
of the Adriatic, the people of Venice built up their 
great navy, trusting their all to the sea, and living by 
it alone. Protection was needed from the pirates of 
lUyria and the northern coast of Africa, and thus arose 
the war navy. It was the deliberate creation of the 
State for the protection of its merchantmen. The 
Venetians started at the right end. The first Doge, 
Paolo Lucio Anafesta, little more than two hundred 
years after the small beginnings of Venice, enforced 
the building of merchant ships and provided for the 
fortification of the shipyards, and Doge Orso Ipato, 
in 726, definitely set himself to create a war navy 
for use against the Lombards, Fourteen years later, 
the Venetians won their first smashing victory, taking 
Ravenna, crushing a serious rival, and thus winning 
the supremacy of the Adriatic. 

Venice became later the "Safeguard of the West." 
But at this time she was fairly constantly on the side 
of the Empire of the East. Charlemagne attempted 
to win her over. His policy was brimstone and treacle. 
He sent his son, Pepin, to sack the town. But Pepin 
met with a great disaster — so great that the scene of 
the battle was known as the Canale d'Orfani. Charle- 
magne then tried propitiation, opening the doors of his 
empire to Venetian trade. The Venetians took his gifts 
and used them as a lever to secure similar concessions 
from Alexius, Emperor of the East. Thus Venice be- 
came the entrepot of trade between East and West, a 
position she was to maintain till the sixteenth century. 
Her power and wealth grew by leaps and bounds. 



88 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Attention has been often called to the configuration 
of the Adriatic coasts during the war. On the Italian 
Peninsula there are few good harbours, until the Gulf 
of Taranto is reached. On the other side, there is 
not only the Peninsula of Istria, with the three naval 
ports of Trieste, Fiume, and Pola, but also a rugged 
coast along lUyria, Dalmatia, and Epirus, fringed 
with islands and provided with the ports of Cattaro, 
Sebenico, Durazzo, Ragusa, San Giovanni di Medusa, 
Prevesa, Valona, and others. To develop full sea 
power in the eastern Mediterranean, the masters of 
Italy must be masters also of the eastern coast of the 
Adriatic. All these ports were, from time immemorial, 
nests of pirates, and it was the first task of the Vene- 
tians to clear them out. The first condition of the 
profitable use of sea power is the establishment of law 
and right at sea. Throughout the latter part of the 
ninth and the early part of the tenth century, Venice 
fought for her life against a combination or succession 
of enemies — Saracens, Slavs, Huns, Narentines. Some- 
times she received a half-hearted backing from the 
Empire of Byzantium. But, on the whole, it was her 
arm alone which, in the end, made her the mistress of 
almost the whole of the eastern shore. Her very mis- 
fortunes turned to her advantage, for, being defeated 
in a naval battle at Taranto, which they fought in 
alliance with the Greeks in 839, the Venetians were 
unable to prevent the enemy from sacking Ancona. 
A disaster thus befell a formidable commercial rival, 
at which the Venetians did not show themselves 
inconsolable. 

So long as the Greeks in Constantinople were strong, 
Venice clave to them and, through her friendship 
and the maritime help she was able to afford, sucked 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 89 

out no small advantage. Her eyes were always on 
the commercial opportunities afforded by Constanti- 
nople. She constrained successive emperors to reduce 
the dues in her favour, so that, at last, she obtained 
pretty nearly the monopoly of trade with the Levant. 
She adopted the same policy as did the Phoenicians, 
the Hansa, and, later, the English and Dutch, of 
establishing settlements or factories in the ports with 
which she traded, winning man}'- valuable privileges, 
political, commercial, and also ecclesiastical. One 
of her first demands on any State to which she sold 
her help was the site for a church — and the tithes 
appurtenant thereto. 

This policy of peaceful trade led her into almost 
continuous war. For this there were several reasons. 
In the first place, she had to purchase the continuance 
and extension of favours from the effete Empire of 
Byzantium by armed help. In the second place, she 
had to contend with the jealousy of commercial rivals, 
such as Genoa, that other great trading Republic of 
Italy, which did not by any means consent to take 
the supremacy of Venice "lying down." In the third 
place, the Crusades led to a demand for her services 
to carry the warriors of the Cross to the Holy Land, 
and she inevitably got embroiled in the strifes between 
the Christian Powers which throw such a dark shadow 
across the picture of these pious undertakings. It was 
the Crusades which finally detached Venice from the 
East and made her "The Safeguard of the West." 
But first, having made her position secure in the Asi- 
atic and debouching into the Mediterranean, she was 
destined to come into contact with the Normans, 
who had established themselves in Sicily, Apulia, and 
Calabria. 



90 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

They came, a band of adventurers in the beginning 
of the eleventh century under Tancred of Hauteville, 
thus bringing the power of the Northman into the 
Mediterranean. Tancred's son, Roger, drove the 
Saracens out of the greater part of Sicily, which, as 
in the days of the Carthaginians, had been an outpost 
of northern Africa and the East, and established him- 
self there. His brother, Robert Guiscard, completed 
the subjugation of the southern states of Italy. By 
the conquest of Salerno and Amalfi, Robert got a 
footing in Constantinople itself, for Amalfi had rich 
possessions there. He set himself to build up his sea 
power, determined to make himself master of the East. 
The resolve of the Normans to increase their commerce 
and to assert their right of way into the Adriatic could 
not fail to bring them into collision with the Venetians, 
even if the jealousy and fears of the Greek Empire had 
not called on the latter to intervene. Both Venetians 
and Normans aimed at an uncontrolled and exclusive 
right of way through the Adriatic; each people con- 
sidered its right to supremacy at sea to be paramount; 
each had interests to guard and further in the commerce 
of the East. Venice was in possession. Therefore she 
stood in alliance with Byzantium to secure to herself 
the use of the sea routes and to forbid them to her 
rival. The primary function of sea power could not 
more plainly be brought out. 

In 1078, Duke Robert espoused the cause of the 
dethroned Emperor, Michael VII., against Alexius 
Comnenus. The latter sought the aid of Venice, 
which was granted on these terms: Alexius promised, 
whether successful or not, to pay an annual tribute of 
twenty pounds of gold to the church of St. Mark; to 
compel the citizens of Amalfi to pay a yearly tax to 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 91 

the said church; to make a free gift of a warehouse, 
some houses, four landing-stages, and a bakehouse, 
with its dues, to the Venetians resident in Constanti- 
nople; to make a gift to them of the church of St. 
Andrew in Durazzo with its tithes and to grant to the 
Venetians absolute freedom of trade in all parts of the 
Empire, except in Cyprus and Candia. In exchange 
for this charming compound of piety and business, 
the Venetians promised to arm every vessel in their 
possession and to lend the Greeks further help by land. 
They kept their promise. 

The events of the war need not be recorded in detail. 
The Normans were heavily defeated in a sea battle 
off Durazzo. Nevertheless, they took the town, and, in 
their turn annihilated a weak Venetian fleet off Corfu. 
But Robert Guiscard died, and the threat to Venice 
and Constantinople was removed. The impotence 
of Byzantium, which lacked sea power, despite the 
foremost maritime position in the world, to defend its 
possessions on the seaboard and on the islands against 
a much smaller State which possessed an efficient navy, 
enabled Venice to extort what terms she pleased for 
her assistance. 

Now, however, the time had come when Venice was 
to abandon her close connection with the Empire of 
the East and, speaking generally, to take her place as 
"The Safeguard of the West." It was the era of the 
Crusades. The hosts of the Cross, drawn from all the 
Christian lands of the West, needed the services of 
the maritime republics of Italy to furnish them with 
transport, to carry provisions and munitions of war, 
and to keep the coasts and the sea communications 
against attack by the still-powerful fleet of the Saracens. 
Genoa and Pisa were first in the field. The former sent 



92 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

an expedition to the help of Boemond, the son of Robert 
Guiscard, who was besieging Antioch in 1097, and, in 
reward, received valuable grants when the city fell. 
Next year, the Pisans, attracted by the advantages 
obtained by the Genoese, also sent their aid to Boe- 
mond. This was too much for the Venetians. Genoa 
and Pisa, up to now, had contented themselves with 
trading with Sicily and the northern coast of Africa. 
Their presence in the East threatened the monopoly 
so carefully built up by Venice in that quarter. In 
1099, Baldwin, the Prankish King of Jerusalem, ap- 
plied to the Republic for assistance, and the Doge, 
Vitale Michiel, pressed the project of the willing Vene- 
tians. The expedition was got ready and sailed for 
Rhodes, where it wintered. But the reality of the 
crusading spirit which animated the Venetians was 
shown by a bloody quarrel which broke out between 
them and the Pisans who formed part of the armament. 
The Venetians were victorious, but restored to their 
foes all the ships and prisoners they had taken, on con- 
dition that the Pisans bound themselves not to trade 
with any places in the Levant. The dear allies then 
sailed off amicably together and arrived off Jaffa in 
June, 1 100, in time for a conference with the dying 
Godfrey de Bouillon, from whom the Doge extracted 
an agreement, giving Venice the third part of every 
city captured and other privileges as the price of her 
assistance. In conjunction with Tancred the Norman, 
the Venetians captured Haifa; but the victors fell out 
over the spoil, and Vitale Michiel took his fleet home. 

The events of the next two years are instructive as 
showing the motives which swayed Venice, and the 
sure grasp she had on the principle that command of 
the Adriatic was a matter of life and death to her. She 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 93 

made an alliance with the King of Hungary to curb 
the Norman power on the Dalmatian coast. Brindisi 
was sacked, and the object of the allies on the whole 
obtained. Next, Boemond, now Prince of Antioch, 
finding himself sore beset by the Turks, Greeks, and 
Saracens who were besieging that town, escaped to 
Europe and raised a new army with which, instead 
of returning at once to the Holy Land, he besieged 
Durazzo. Venice at once entered into a league with 
Byzantixmi, harassed Boemond's communications, and 
forced him to raise the siege. This done, they set out 
for Palestine to the assistance of Baldwin of Jerusalem. 
There they, indirectly, at any rate, assisted the Nor- 
mans against the Greeks who had, a few months pre- 
viously, obtained their aid against the Normans. 
To complicate matters still further, Caloman of Hun- 
gary deemed the moment favourable to break his 
treaty with Venice and to possess himself of some towns 
in Dalmatia. The Venetians applied for aid to the 
Emperor Alexius; but their need of Byzantine help 
by land did not prevent the fleet, which had been sent 
to the Syrian coast and had taken part in the capture 
of Sidon, from paying a visit to Constantinople and 
showing its friendliness to the Greeks by carrying off 
the body of St. Stephen from one of the basilicas. 
Alliances and enmities alike sat lightly on the business 
men of Venice. 

In all this, however, there is a clear and definite line 
of policy, though the rape of the saint's body was not 
essential to it. The Venetians lived by the trade of 
the sea, and they realised that, to enjoy that trade and 
its fruits, they must be in undisputed command of the 
sea communications, since, according to the economic 
thought of that time and of long afterwards, successful 



94 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

trade required monopoly. They were so placed geo- 
graphically that they could act both as a barrier and a 
channel of intercourse between East and West, so long 
as they maintained their sea power. While the Nor- 
mans, Genoese, Pisans, and Saracens were kept in a 
state of comparative weakness, these communications 
and, with them, their valuable monopolies, were secure. 
Nay, more, they could be increased almost indefinitely 
by the sale of Venetian aid, first to one claimant and 
then to another. It was not very noble, but it paid. 
And the patrician of Venice would have been the first 
to tell you that "business is business." 

Moreover, in justice to the Venetians, it must be 
remembered that at this time there was no vestige of a 
law which ran at sea, and also that their position was 
not entirely instilar. Situated as they were at the 
head of a narrow sea, they were compelled by necessity 
to keep control of the Dalmatian coast so far as they 
could, and this necessity brought them into direct 
contact with great Land Powers. A land frontier 
with powerful States on the other side of it is always a 
dire complication for a maritime State, rendering in- 
complete the advantage of sea power. Holland is 
another instance of the same embarrassment. 

The position of Venice at the time of the Crusades 
is thus summed up by Gibbon : 

The policy of Venice was marked by the avarice of a 
trading, and the insolence of a maritime, Power; yet her 
ambition was prudent. Nor did she often forget that, 
if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant 
vessels were the cause and supply, of her greatness. 

Venice had now entered upon the policy of planting 
colonies or settlements abroad. The first was in 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 95 

Sidon. Others were shortly to follow, both on the 
coast of Syria and in the islands of the Levant. Her 
colonies brought her wealth; but, as in the case of 
Phoenicia of old, they taxed her strength both by the 
demand for settlers and the need of providing for 
their defence. Moreover, the Venetians had not the 
art of ruling. They exploited their colonies for the 
advantage of the Mother City. They were cordially 
disliked by their subjects. Sea power easily permits 
of the foundation of an oversea empire; but whether 
that empire is to be a source of strength or weakness 
to the Mother Country depends, first on geographical 
position; secondly, and, perhaps, mainly, on the char- 
acter of the race and its capacity for government. 
Gibbon, in the passage quoted above, talks of the 
"insolence" of a maritime Power. He probably 
intended a back-handed cut at his own country in 
so doing. But, although, from time to time in our 
history, we have, without doubt, displayed arrogance 
towards other nations and even to people of our own 
flesh and blood, it is the absence of insolence and 
the large tolerance which Britain has displayed; her 
respect for the rights and interests of others, which 
have made the British Empire a source of strength to 
the Mother Country and not of weakness. We have 
not exploited the lands over which our flag flies; we 
have not exacted tribute from any, at any rate for the 
last century and a half. We have freely extended to 
all the protection of the navy and have sought no 
monopoly in return. Therefore, each Colony and 
Dependenc3^ has developed normally, if slowly, under 
the British flag, and the strain which was felt by 
Phoenicia and Venice, as, later, by Spain and Portugal, 
has been avoided. A vein of idealism and a strong 



96 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

sense of justice and freedom are necessary, if sea power 
is to lead to Empire. Enterprise and commercial 
capacity are not in themselves enough. 

The Fourth Crusade witnessed the final breach 
between Venice and the Empire of the East and the 
passing of Constantinople itself into the hands of the 
Western Powers. Enrico Dandolo, one of the great- 
est names in Venetian history, was elected Doge in 
1 192, at the age of eighty-four. In his youth he had 
been taken prisoner to Byzantium and cruelly treated, 
his eyes being held so close over white hot steel that 
the sight was almost destroyed. To him came an 
embassy ten years after his election from Louis Count 
of Blois, Thibaud Count of Champagne, and Baldwin 
Count of Flanders and Hainault, to negotiate for the 
hire of transport ships for an expedition they proposed 
to undertake against Egypt. Dandolo not only readily 
agreed to hire them the ships, but proposed himself, 
though ninety-four years of age and nearly blind, to 
take the Cross, with a great host of Venetian nobles. 
The terms were, of course, favourable to Venice. But 
the extraordinary thing is that, in the document which 
ratified the agreement, no destination is named for 
the expedition. Dandolo, in haranguing the ambas- 
sadors on its conclusion said: "All these conditions 
which we have explained to you will last a year, dating 
from the day when we leave the port of Venice to per- 
form the service of God and Christianity in whatever 
place it be." 

The Venetians were soon ready, but the Knights of 
the Cross tarried, nor could those who assembled 
find sufficient money to pay the agreed sum to their 
hosts. So Dandolo made a proposal. If the Crusaders 
would help the Venetians to recover Zara, a possession 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 97 

of Venice on the Dalmatian coast which was then in 
revolt, the latter would consent to defer the payment 
of the money to a more convenient season. The 
Crusaders agreed reluctantly and Zara was reduced 
in November, 1201. The Knights now expected to 
push on to Egypt, but Dandolo explained that it was 
too late in the year. Then came young Alexius, son 
of Isaac II., Emperor of Byzantium, who had been 
dethroned and blinded by his brother, another Alexius, 
six years before. He implored the aid of the Crusaders, 
promising, among other things, that, if his father were 
restored, he would promote the reunion of the churches 
of the East and the West. The bait took. The 
Crusade became a crusade of the Western Church 
against the Eastern, instead of one against the Infidel. 
Constantinople fell ; Baldwin of Flanders and Hainault 
became Emperor of the East. The triumph was com- 
plete but short-lived. Baldwin fell in battle with the 
Bulgarians, and old Dandolo died shortly afterwards 
at the age of ninety-six, having set his country on her 
highest pinnacle of greatness. He bequeathed to his 
successors the title of "Master of a fourth and an 
eighth of the whole Empire of Rome. ' ' But his success, 
by destroying the power of the Empire of Byzantium, 
was fatal to the cause of Christendom in the East. 

The story of the Fourth Crusade marks an epoch 
in the history of the Mediterranean. We now come 
to the long struggles between Venice and Genoa for 
the mastery of that sea, which had for its consequences, 
first, the destruction of the Prankish Empire in Con- 
stantinople; secondly, the restoration of the Greek 
Empire in the house of the Palaeologi and the alliance 
of the latter with the Genoese; thirdly, the delivery 
of Venice from destruction by the heroism of Vettor 



98 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Pisani, and, finally, the decay and overthrow of the 
sea power of Genoa. There were intervals of peace; 
but from first to last the war lasted nearly one hundred 
and fifty years, from 1238 to the Peace of Turin in 
1382. Venice was forced to cede the coast of Dalmatia 
to the King of Hungary, to hand over Tenedos to the 
Count of Savoy, and to give up Treviso to the House 
of Carrara. Her sea power was hampered much by 
attacks from the land side ; but, in the end, she emerged 
not visibly weaker, since a powerful rival had been 
destroyed. But the seeds of decay were sown. More- 
over, Tyre, Sidon, and Acre were now lost to the Christ- 
ian cause by the advance of the Turks, and the bulwark 
of Christendom was weakened by the establishment 
of several feeble States across the path of the Ottoman 
instead of a single strong Power. Venice was the true 
Safeguard of the West as long as she lent the support 
of her sea power to the East, or was herself supreme in 
the vital position of Constantinople. She was yet 
to offer a splendid resistance to the oncoming Turk; 
but neither her navy, nor the armies of Greek, Serb, 
Hungarian, or Rumanian could now prevent him from 
blighting the east of Europe with his presence for 
five hundred years and more. Had the Turk not mas- 
tered the European shore of the Dardanelles — and he 
could not have done so had the Venetian sea power 
been predominant in Greece and in the islands — he 
would no more have established himself firmly in 
Europe than Xerxes did. 

The folly and blindness of the Venetian leaders 
during the ensuing century are almost past belief. 
With the threat of the Osmanli power to all Europe, 
and to themselves in particular, growing greater and 
greater every year, they forsook the sea, the only ele- 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 99 

merit on which they could hope to resist it, allowed 
their fleet to decay, and devoted themselves to con- 
quest on the mainland of Italy. They possessed them- 
selves of a great part of Lombardy and of Padua and 
other places, by which means they drew down upon 
themselves the hostility of the Florentines, who in- 
trigued with the Turks incessantly, and finally banded 
a great part of Europe against themselves in the 
League of Cambrai. They lost their continental 
possessions thereby, and also their pride of place as 
the foremost bulwark of Eiu-ope against the Turk. 
But long before this date they had lost much else. In 
1453, Mahomet II. stormed Constantinople, a cata- 
clysm which shook Europe to its foundations. The 
Greek Empire crumbled to the dust, never to revive. 
Venice attempted to make terms with the conqueror, 
humbly congratulating him upon his success, and 
accepting at his hands renewal of her commercial 
privileges at the cost of her honour. The feeble efforts 
of the King of Cyprus and the Knights of Rhodes 
utterly failed to stay the progress of Mahomet. He 
possessed himself of the Morea; yet the League of the 
Powers of Europe, formed in 1493 at Peterwaradin, 
which the Venetians joined, failed to act. The Pope and 
Venice were left to face the Turks alone. The Pope 
wrote to the Doge, Cristoforo Moro, urging him to 
remember the example of Dandolo and to put himself 
at the head of the Venetian armament. The poor 
oM man, however, though he had nigh reached Dan- 
dolo 's years, lacked everything of his spirit^ He 
pleaded his infirmities and his ignorance of nautical 
matters. But the Senate was determined that the 
head of the nation should lead the national forces. 
"Serene Prince," said Vettor Capello, one of the ducal 



lOO SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

counsellors, "if your Excellency will not go willingly, 
you shall be made to go forcibly, for we hold the honour 
of our country above any consideration for your person." 
The Doge went accordingly, but by the time the expedi- 
tion had reached Ancona Pius II. was dead, and the 
Venetians faced the fury of the Turks alone. 

The latter revealed themselves to an astonished 
Europe as a great naval Power. Secure within the 
Straits of the Dardanelles, they had built up their 
strength, and the Ottoman Admiral confronted the 
Venetian leader Antonio Canale, with an armada of 
three hundred ships to which he could oppose but 
sixty. Mahomet in person marched into Greece by 
the old route of the Persians, while the Venetians lay 
off Euboea, where they hesitated to try conclusions 
with the Turks. Negropont was taken and sacked 
with the most appalling horrors, and Canale was 
brought back to Venice in irons and banished. 

The two invasions of Greece which bear so remark- 
able a likeness — that of Mahomet and that of Xerxes 
— may be compared. Themistocles, like Canale, lay 
off Euboea in inferior force. After the defeat of Leoni- 
das at Thermopylae, the Persians, like the Turks, 
marched into Greece. Themistocles, however, showed 
fight, and, though the actions he fought were both 
indecisive, they saved Euboea, and enabled him to 
withdraw his fleet in safety to Salamis, where, in 
victorious battle, he forced the withdrawal of Xerxes, 
who became nervous about his communications. 
Command of the sea saved Greece then ; now the Greeks 
had no fleet of their own, and the succouring fleet of 
Venice was inferior. Therefore, Greece, under pre- 
cisely similar strategical circumstances, was lost. 
Mahomet, holding both shores of the Dardanelles, 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES loi 

moreover, had no need to be anxious for his communica- 
tions, had the event proved less favourable to him 
than it actually was. 

After Euboea, Scutari — the Albanian Scutari, for 
which the Montenegrins fought so hard in 19 1 2 — was 
taken by the Turks, and, ere long, the burghers of 
Venice could see the fires of destruction from their 
city. Nothing remained for them but to make peace, 
and the Queen of the Adriatic, crowned with shame, 
paid tribute to the infidel. It is a ghastly lesson to 
all those who, having the gift of the sea for their pro- 
tection, misuse that gift through sloth or penury, or 
indulge in ambitions of aggrandisement on another 
element. 

Now there begin to appear in the Mediterranean 
European Powers which had not hitherto made their 
weight felt there by sea. In 1499, Venice declared 
war on the Ottoman Empire in alliance with King John 
of France. This venture was no more prosperous than 
the preceding one, chiefly owing to the supineness, if 
'not the cowardice, of the Venetian Commander, 
Grimani. The Venetians lost Modon, Coron, Navarino, 
and Nauplia, and had to put up with insults both 
from French and Turks. "You Venetians are wise 
in councils and abound in riches," said the French 
King. "But so fearful are you of death that you have 
neither spirit nor manliness in war." "You have 
wedded the sea till now," said Mahomet's Grand 
Vizier to a Venetian envoy. "For the future that 
belongs to us who have more on it than you." Bitter 
words for Venetian ears to hear! 

After the French, the Spaniards put in an appear- 
ance in 1509, but proved of little more avail. The 
Venetians, however, under Benedetto Pesaro, gained 



102 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

some victories, which enabled them to conclude a 
peace by which Cephalonia and Nauplia were restored 
to them. Soon, however, worse things befell them 
than any which had gone before. War broke out 
again in 1538, when Venice joined a new League pro- 
moted by the Pope after the fall of Rhodes. The 
League was utterly defeated at Prevesa by the Otto- 
mans under the famous corsair, Hairredin Barbarossa, 
whose name and fame were fitly perpetuated in one of 
the battleships bought from Germany by the Turks 
and sunk in 1915 by a British submarine in the Mar- 
mora. Selim the Drunkard, who had succeeded 
Solyman the Magnificent, himself the great-grandson 
of the conqueror of Constantinople, made ready to 
attack Cyprus. Plague broke out in Venice, and the 
Arsenal was burned down. The Christian Powers 
had their own preoccupations elsewhere, and would 
render no aid. Venice was left to face the storm alone. 
It did not break till 1570, when the great Turkish fleet, 
with an army of 100,000 men, laid siege to Nicosia. 
Christendom was at last aroused; but Philip II. of 
Spain, of Armada fame, alone sent aid. Even he was 
something less than half-hearted. The opportunity 
was thrown away in futile debate; Nicosia was taken, 
and then Famagosta. The whole of Cyprus fell into 
the hands of the Turks, so to remain until Disraeli 
drove his bargain in 1878 and placed it in British hands. 
Next year there came the last brilliant flash of the 
expiring glory of Venice, which also marked the definite 
turn of the tide of Turkish conquest. Philip roused 
himself in earnest. He got together a great armament 
of Spanish, Neapolitan, Papal, and Venetian ships 
under the command of his bastard brother, Don John 
of Austria. Giannandrea Doria, the Genoese, was at 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 103 

the head of the Spanish contingent, Sebastiano Veniero 
in command of that of Venice. As usual, there were 
dissensions among the alUes. The Venetian ships 
were not well found — a fact perhaps excusable, in view 
of the recent destruction of the Arsenal — and there 
was a long relay at Messina. Veniero and Don John, 
moreover, were not on good terms. The Venetians, 
fallen from their high estate at the head of the Powers 
of the West, had to endure many insults. But the 
leaders were at least united in their determination to 
fight, and on Sunday, October 7, 1571, the Turks were 
met off the rocky cluster of the Curzolari, north of the 
Gulf of Lepanto. A Council of War was held on board 
the flagship, and some of the commanders were for 
retiring. But Don John was of a higher spirit. "De- 
part, gentlemen," he said. "This is not the time for 
counsel but for battle," The great flag of the League, 
bearing the image of the Crucified Redeemer, was run 
up to the masthead of the flagship, Don John, catch- 
ing sight of Veniero on his quarter-deck, waved him a 
friendly greeting which wiped out all soreness, and then, 
to show his joy in battle, danced the "gagliarda" on 
the poop of his ship in the sight of his whole fleet. 
Thus encouraged, the Christian host fell on. The 
galley of Don John lay aboard that of Ali Pasha, the 
Turkish Commander-in-Chief, and a desperate hand- 
to-hand fight resulted in the capture of the Turk, 
By nightfall the victory of the Christians was complete, 
A hundred and seventeen galleys and twenty galleons 
remained in their hands; fifty more were sunk; eighty 
thousand Turks were slain and ten thousand more 
taken prisoners. The losses of the allies were about 
7500, of whom 2000 were Venetians, Pope Pius V. 
eulogised the victor by quoting: "There was a man 



104 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

sent from God, whose name was John." All Christen- 
dom agreed. 

Lepanto is justly included among the decisive battles 
of the world. The Turks were yet to add Crete to 
their possessions; but Don John, on that October day 
in 1 57 1, pronounced upon them the sentence: "Thus 
far and no farther!" Off the indented coast of the 
Morea, among the islands of the Greek Archipelago 
and within a few miles of Salamis, Actium, and Nava- 
rino, the question whether East or West should prevail 
was again decided. It was too late to push the Turk 
back from the position he had won. The control of 
the Dardanelles, which he had acquired owing to the 
jealousies and ineptitudes of the Christian Powers, 
was too strong to be forced, though the Venetians 
were, in the next hundred and twenty years, to win 
four victories at the mouth of the Straits, thanks 
largely to the genius of Francesco Morosini. But the 
Ottoman advance in Europe was definitely stayed. 
The victory of John Sobieski under the walls of Vienna 
a century later followed Lepanto as Waterloo followed 
Trafalgar. Yet the day of Venice was at an end. 
At Lepanto, for the first time in all the long struggles 
with the Turks, she had been second, not first, in the 
armament of Christendom. It was significant. She 
kept the shadow of her power but the substance had 
departed. The Spaniards, the French, the Dutch, 
and the English — all the maritime Powers — came into 
the Eastern Mediterranean in the seventeenth cen- 
tury. If the Venetians failed to seize the opportunity 
afforded by the discovery of America and the Cape 
of Good Hope to extend her commerce beyond the 
pillars of Hercules, the Westerners did not miss theirs 
to garner their share of the lucrative trade with Con-. 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 105 

stantinople and the Levant, so long the monopoly of 
Venice. Their warships followed their merchantmen, 
principally to protect the latter from the forays of 
those strange pirate States which grew out of the loosely 
knit Turkish Empire in North Africa, which its sea 
power, broken by Lepanto, could no longer control. 
The last was not suppressed until Lord Exmouth 
reduced Algiers in 18 16. Henceforward, the history 
of sea power in the Mediterranean is interwoven with 
that of the seas beyond. By the end of the seven- 
teenth century there were conflicts between the English 
and the Dutch in its waters; in 1704 Gibraltar passed 
into the hands of the English. 

Venice was great at sea partly by reason of her 
geographical position which, so long as the States which 
lay behind her did not become too powerfiil, so long 
as she did not cherish ambitions of continental con- 
quest, and so long as she kept on friendly terms with 
the Empire of the East, gave her freedom to develop 
her oversea trade and the sea power which that trade 
created. The reasons why she nervelessly dropped her 
sceptre when the way round the Cape of Good Hope 
was found are probably three : First, her nobles, grown 
rich and luxurious, were in no mind for further adven- 
ture, involving hardship. Secondly, she was led away 
by ambition to increase her realm by land, and thus 
abandoned in some degree the element which alone 
had made her great. Thirdly, as a Mediterranean 
Power, she relied on the oared galley, and her seamen 
were probably less skilled than those whose coasts 
fronted the ocean. This limitation is not absolute, 
for the Venetians were in the habit of sending a galley 
to Britain every year, and therefore had some experi- 
ence in oceanic voyaging. But to hug the shores of 



io6 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

France and Spain, even to cross the Bay of Biscay, 
was a different thing from turning the prow boldly 
to the distant horizon and sailing forth into the un- 
known. Three of the four great explorers of the com- 
ing age were, of course, Mediterranean seamen — 
Genoese, not Venetians — but they were all in the service 
of foreign States and gained their experience outside 
the Middle Sea. When the Venetians made an attempt 
to contest the right of way to India with the Portu- 
guese, with the help of the Turks, Egyptians, and 
Arabs, they proved no match for the ocean-tried 
seamen of Vasco da Gama. 

Venice lingered independent till the end of the 
eighteenth century, but she lingered inglorious. Then 
Napoleon put an end to her career, until she resumed 
it with brighter hopes as part of the kingdom of United 
Italy. 

Since the construction of the Suez Canal the Medi- 
terranean has recovered the importance it formerly 
held for any Power aspiring to the command of the 
sea. Indeed, it never really lost it, for the Peninsula 
of Italy, long divided between Hapsburg and Bourbon, 
had always a great strategical value in the struggles 
between those houses, and the Mediterranean was 
always the shortest line of communication with the 
vital military position of Central Europe on the middle 
Danube. Moreover, Egypt remained the pivot of 
the communications with the East, and was therefore 
the desired prize of any ruler with oriental ambitions. 
It is notable that, as will be seen later, almost the 
whole of Nelson's career was bound up with Mediter- 
ranean questions. We have always found a grasp of 
the Mediterranean essential to our policy of thwarting 
any attempt at the domination of the Continent by a 



MEDITERRANEAN IN MIDDLE AGES 107 

single Power. As it has been in the past, so it is still 
to-day. The abandonment of the Mediterranean 
has been frequently advocated, and by authorities of 
deserved weight. It has never been found a possible 
policy in practice. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 

As the Middle Ages end, we stand at the beginning 
of that great era when learning ceased to be shackled, 
when man's thought became free, and when the horizon 
of his vision was extended by the discovery of new 
lands and new routes across the ocean. The world, 
nay, the universe, underwent a sudden expansion, 
and not only the material world, but the world of the 
mind and spirit also. A short table of dates will be 
sufficient to show the magnitude and the suddenness 
of the change : 

Constantinople was taken by the Turks . . , 1453 
Ferdinand and Isabella succeeded to the thrones 

of Aragon and Castile ... ... ... 1474 

Caxton set up the first printing press in England 1476 
Bartholomew Diaz sailed round the Cape of 

Good Hope i486 

Columbus discovered the Bahamas ... ... 1492 

Luther posted his Confessions at Wittenberg 151 7 

Henry VIII. broke with Rome ... ... 1529-36 

Copernicus published his De Revolutionihus 

Orbium ... t. 1543 

In these events, the product of a single crowded 
century of history, are included almost all that is 

108 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 109 

essential in the great movements which we call the 
Renascence and Reformation. There are two political 
events among them: the taking of Constantinople by 
the Turks, which filled western Europe with the treas- 
ures of Greek learning, and the accession of Ferdinand 
and Isabella, who promoted the enterprise of Columbus, 
and thus, indirectly, at any rate, brought about the 
Spanish claim to the empire of the New World, which, 
being ratified by the Pope, brought rehgious antago- 
nisms into play as a factor in the long strife for the 
freedom of the sea. Furthermore, it was in the reign 
of Ferdinand and Isabella that Spain was unified, 
and under their famous grandson, the Emperor Charles 
v., that Spain, Naples, and the Netherlands became one 
realm, while his sons, again, were PhiHp, the husband 
of Mary Tudor, and enemy of EHzabeth, and Don 
John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto. 

It seems the natural thing that the boundless develop- 
ment of men's minds which followed upon the revival 
of learning, the collapse of feudalism, and the spread 
far and wide of the printed word should turn their 
thoughts to the ocean and what lay beyond. We 
have to think of a world enlarged by the whole of the 
American Continent and the islands adjacent to the 
Atlantic coast thereof; by the coast-belt of Africa 
south of a line drawn, roughly, from the Atlas moun- 
tains on the west to the entrance to the Gulf of Suez 
on the east; by the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, 
Madagascar, the coasts of India, Siam, Cochin China, 
Japan, and, very darkly and mistily, Australia. It is 
not, of course, the case that all these lands, or even 
half of them, were unknown by repute, or even that 
they had not had intercourse overland with Europe 
before. If we beHeve ancient legends, even North 



no SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

America and the Cape of Good Hope were known to the 
Norsemen and Phoenicians respectively, and Marco 
Polo had visited China. But the Mohammedan power 
barred the way to all the East by land, so that effective 
intercourse with the regions named did, in fact, origin- 
ate in the wonderful century which began with the 
fall of Constantinople and ended with the accession of 
Elizabeth. Naturally, the effect on men's minds was 
stupendous. Is it wonderful that the world was re- 
born, or that the throes of the new birth were violent, 
devastating to old beliefs and systems, fraught with 
misery and wrong? They were all that. But, never- 
theless, the age was irradiated with a splendour of 
thought and achievement such as no other age in the 
world's history has seen. 

To the little kingdom of Portugal, rather than to 
her greater neighbour, must be given the palm as the 
pioneer of discovery. In the first place, whereas the 
great explorers who gave the main part of South America 
to Spain, Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci, were 
Italians, the far longer list of Portuguese navigators 
contains only the names of the native-born. Bar- 
tholomew Diaz, Vasco da Gama, Tristan d'Acunha, 
Cabral, and Magellan, though the last-named was 
employed by the Spanish Government, were all pure 
Portuguese. With the exception of Cabral, who 
discovered Brazil, and added that rich country to the 
empire of Portugal, and Magellan, who sailed round 
Cape Horn in the service of Spain, the Portuguese 
navigators undertook all their voyages to the south 
and east. It is curious that the chief preoccupation of 
King Manoel the Fortunate in sending first Diaz and 
then Vasco da Gama to discover the passage round the 
Cape of Good Hope, should have been to find the 




A Caravel of the Fifteenth Century 




\ 



Columbus's Caravels 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY in 

mythical realm of Prester John. It is related that, 
when the Portuguese reached Calicut, they worshipped 
the image of the Hindoo goddess Gauri, under the 
belief that it was a representation of the Virgin, and 
that the natives were the Christian subjects of Prester 
John. The Hindoos, for their part, worshipped the 
images of the Virgin under the belief that they repre- 
sented Gauri. The Portuguese were greatly disappointed 
to discover eventually that Prester John could only 
be identified with the half-savage monarch of Abyssinia. 
They had much to console them, however. The 
silken stuffs, precious stones, and spices of the East 
aroused their cupidity. Expedition followed expedi- 
tion, and what has been rather magniloquently called 
the "conquest of India" took place. As a matter of 
fact, the Portuguese did little more than possess them- 
selves of a few places on the coast, of which Bombay, 
Goa, Cochin, and Diu were the most important. They 
had to engage in hard fighting, in the course of which 
they stained their hands with much cruelty; but they 
fought rather against the Turks, Egyptians, Venetians, 
and Arabs, who were already established as traders 
with the Indian Rajahs, than with the natives. One 
of the Governors sent out by Manoel, Almeida, laid 
down a policy which closely resembles that pursued later 
by the British in their dealings with India, and which, 
if it had been followed, might have done much to con- 
solidate Portuguese power by making oversea expansion 
a support to the home Government instead of a source 
of weakness to it. 

Let all our strength be on the sea [he says]. Let us re- 
frain from appropriating the land. The old tradition of 
conquest, the empire of such distant lands, is not desirable. 



112 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Let us destroy these new races [the Arabs, Turks, etc.], 
and reinstate the ancient races and natives of the coast. 
Then we will go further. Let us secure with our fleets the 
safety of the sea, and protect the natives, in whose name we 
may practically reign over India. There would certainly 
be no harm in our having a few fortresses along the coast, 
but simply to protect the factories against surprise, for 
their chief safety will lie in the friendship of the native 
Rajahs, placed upon their thrones by us, and maintained 
and defended by our fleets. What has been done so far is 
but anarchy, scarcely an outline of government, a system 
of murder, piracy, and disorder which it is necessary to 
remedy. 

If the idea of Almeida be compared with the practice 
of Clive and Warren Hastings, the likeness is certainly 
remarkable. His great contemporary, Albuquerque, 
however, thought differently, and, in Ormuz, Goa, and 
Malacca established the limits of the empire, which, 
in Almeida's judgment, would have floated securely, 
if somewhat vaguely, on the water. 

The range of that empire was enormous. From 
Macao, forty miles from Hong-Kong, in the east, and 
the island of Timor in the south, it spread over the 
Portuguese settlements in India itself to the East 
Coast of Africa — Mozambique, Zanzibar, and Lou- 
rengo Marques — and round to the west, embracing 
Angola and Portuguese Guinea, and then across the 
Atlantic to Brazil. The Portuguese nowhere spread 
across a whole continent as did the Spaniards in South 
America, but they had their settlements on the fringes 
of many lands; they held dominion over countless 
islands. Their imprint to-day is as strong upon the 
Malayan race as is that of the Arabs. 

The fleets of Portugal were never large; the riches 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 113 

obtained by maritime trade were never great. Never- 
theless this little country must be accounted one of 
the real Sea Powers of the world, for its maritime 
ascendancy was based on that love of adventure and 
desire for achievement which is the true foundation 
of all maritime enterprise. The Portuguese, during 
the short period of their power, came into conflict 
with no European foe, save the Venetians, in the 
Indian Ocean. Their communications with their 
oversea possessions were disputed by no other nation, 
for the Dutch and the English were but in their in- 
fancy as sea-faring, or, rather, ocean-faring peoples, 
and the desires of the Spaniards were set in a different 
direction. When causes of quarrel arose, which, how- 
ever, were not maritime, Spain easily crushed her 
smaller neighbour on the land side. Portugal possessed 
a fatal disqualification for sea power. She was a 
small continental State, with a powerful neighbour 
behind her. She siiffered this inconvenience in com- 
mon with Holland and Venice, and, in her case, as in 
theirs, it was instrumental in bringing about her fall. 
In 1583, Portugal and all its foreign possessions, with 
the exception of the Azores, passed into the hands of 
Philip II. of Spain. Sixty years later independence 
was recovered, and, with the help of Britain on most 
critical occasions, has since been maintained. But 
the power of Portugal was a thing of the past, and the 
Dutch now succeeded to the position of the Portu- 
guese mariners as the boldest of traders and explorers. 
One by one, the Eastern possessions of Portugal, save 
Macao, Timor, and a few towns in India, fell into their 
hands. But the African Empire was maintained, 
and remains to this day almost intact. Brazil remained 
Portuguese until the nineteenth century. 



114 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

At the present time the Empire of Portugal abroad 
consists of Macao, a part of Timor, Goa and Diu, in 
India, Mozambique, and Delagoa Bay, Portuguese 
Guinea, Angola, San Thome, and Principe Islands, 
the Azores, and Cape Verd Islands. It is still consider- 
able, judged by area and even by population. But 
the mercantile marine consists of no more than seventy- 
five steamers and one hundred and eight sailing ships, 
altogether just over 200,000 tons. The war-navy 
consists of one old coast-defence ship, four light cruisers, 
a few torpedo-boats, and one submarine. Quomodo 
ceciderunt validi! The power to defend its sea com- 
munications has long departed. The independence 
and the Empire of Portugal rest on British defence. 
Consequently, while the flag of Portugal still floats 
over many of the possessions of our ancient Ally, the 
profit which so great possessions might bring is to 
others. The alliance between Great Britain and 
Portugal is the oldest and least interrupted in the 
world. Its true basis will be best explained hereafter. 

The sea power of Spain was as suddenly created as 
that of the Romans, and, like theirs, it was entirely 
military. The caravels and carracks crossed the 
Atlantic, not to trade, but to bring home booty. If 
the Portuguese Empire in the east rested on pepper, 
that of Spain in the west had the gold of Peru and the 
silver of Potosi for foundation. And the foundation 
proved rotten. Nevertheless, while it endured, the 
dominion of Spain upon the ocean was remarkable 
enough. 

Until Ferdinand and Isabella joined the two Crowns 
of Arragon and Castile, Spain was not. Navarre still 
owned a separate sovereign, the South was in the hands 
of the Moors, The taking of Granada in 1492 sealed 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 115 

the unity of Spain. It was in the self -same year that 
Columbus landed in the Bahamas. Next year, Pope 
Alexander VI. granted the Bull by which the Atlantic 
was magnificently divided by a line drawn down its 
centre, all discoveries to the east being given to Por- 
tugal, and all on the west to Spain, in the name of Holy 
Church. Forty years later, Corteshad conqueredMexico, 
and Pizarro was master of Peru. The Spanish system 
was in full swing; the treasure galleys were bringing 
the golden store of the Incas to the mother country. 
At this date the Netherlands were a province of the 
Spanish Crown, and Henry VIII. had not yet begun 
that rupture of relations with Rome which was the 
first step in the English Reformation. It is important 
to bear these facts in mind, for they explain in part 
why the Spaniards were able to establish their empire 
in the New World unmolested. The Bull of Pope 
Alexander VI. protected them against the restless spirit 
which was growing up in England, as in other European 
countries, thanks to the travellers' tales which were 
passing from mouth to mouth. 

It has been pointed out above that the great seamen 
who served Spain in this epoch were not Spaniards, 
but Italians and Portuguese. The great Spaniards 
were not seamen, but soldiers. Their principle was the 
very opposite of that recommended by the Portu- 
guese, Almeida. They set up a vast empire on land, 
and trusted to the monopoly given them by the Papal 
Bull and the restrictive legislation of the motherland 
to preserve to Spain the fruits of their endeavour. 
No export, other than that of the precious metals, was 
at first permitted from the new territories; the vine 
and the olive were not to be cultivated in the New 
World, lest they should interfere with the Spanish 



Ii6 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

trade in oil and wine; commerce was confined to the 
port of Cadiz, and might only be carried on in the 
galleons specially appointed for the purpose. Spanish 
America was made the personal appanage of the sover- 
eign. Under such conditions, sea power could not 
grow healthily. It is, of course, true that a large num- 
ber of ships were employed; but, as Columbus said, 
in the early days, when once the passage was made, 
the course was so easy that every tailor sought a licence 
to turn explorer. The Spaniards no more acquired 
the true habit of the sea, necessary to meet the emer- 
gencies soon to confront them, than do the stewards 
of a transatlantic liner in our own days. So far as the 
military navy of Spain was concerned, the soldiers 
ruled it, and to the soldiers' conception of sea fighting 
it had to conform. 

It was essentially a Mediterranean, not an oceanic, 
fleet. It won glory in that inland sea; little, if any, 
outside it. But a new conception of sea warfare was 
arising, which was destined to make it a thing apart 
from land warfare. The English mariners, who now 
began to fare forth, seeking the North-West Passage 
to India, or braving other stormy seas which called 
for skill, resolution, and resource, were, for the most 
part, private adventurers. Their ships were small, 
as had been the ships of Columbus and Bartholomew 
Diaz, and they remained small, handy, and weatherly 
when the Spaniards turned to building their huge sea 
castles. When the break with Rome removed the 
reverence inspired by Pope Alexander's Bull, and made 
it a pious duty, as well as a profitable recreation, to 
"singe the beard" of his Catholic Majesty, they neces- 
sarily went into forbidden seas, and thus they came 
to evolve a system of purely naval tactics. They had 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 117 

no soldiers to carry, and, if they had possessed them 
there was no room for them in their Httle ships, in 
which all available space was needed for rich cargoes. 
So the sailors themselves learned to work the guns 
which the dangers of the sea compelled all traders to 
carry. They fought their ships as well as sailed them. 

Finally, in the years immediately preceding the 
Armada, the Netherlands revolted against the Spanish 
Crown. The religious quarrel was already acute, and 
the English instinct, which sees in Antwerp a pistol 
pointed at the heart of England, began to take alarm 
at the presence of Spanish armaments in the Flemish 
and Dutch ports. The "sea-beggars," as the naval 
forces of the revolutionaries were called, did not lack 
volunteers from England, nor even direct aid from the 
cautious Elizabeth, before hostilities were actually de- 
clared between the Island State and the great military 
Power of the Continent. 

Before entering upon the story of the Armada, it 
may be well to describe briefly the part which England 
played in the work of discovery and the growth of the 
sea spirit among our people. It is noteworthy that 
the two explorers who first brought fame to England 
and laid the foundation of her oversea empire were 
Italians, as were those who went forth for Spain. 
John Cabot, a Genoese by birth, but a citizen of Venice, 
was settled at Bristol at the end of the fifteenth century, 
and had become a wealthy merchant. In 1497, having 
heard of the exploits of Columbus, he sought and ob- 
tained from Henry VII. the following remarkable licence : 

Henry, by the Grace of God King of England and 
France, Lord of Ireland, to our trusty and well-beloved 
subjects, greeting: 



ii8 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Be it known to all that We have given and granted, 
and, by these presents, do give and grant, to Our well- 
beloved John Cabot, citizen of Venice; to Lewis, Sebastian, 
and Sanctius, sons of the said John, and to their heirs 
and deputies, full and free authority, leave and power 
to sail to all parts, countries, and seas of the East, of the 
West, and of the North, under our banners and ensigns, 
with five ships of whatsoever burthen and quality they 
shall choose, and as many mariners and men as they will 
take with them in the ships upon their own proper costs 
and charges, to look out, find, and discover whatsoever 
isles, countries, regions, or provinces of the Heathen or 
Infidels, wheresoever they be, and in what part soever of 
the world, which before this time hath not been known to 
all Christians. 

He proceeds to give the Cabots authority to occupy 
and possess all cities and towns, subject to an obliga- 
tion to pay him one-fifth of all their profits on their 
return to Bristol, at which port only they were bound 
to arrive, and he bids all his subjects give their aid to 
furnish them forth. 

This licence observes very strictly the Bull of Alex- 
ander VI. Cabot may sail "East, West, or North." 
He is not empowered to sail south, the only direction 
in which he could interfere with either Spain or Por- 
tugal, and his rights are limited to the lands inhabited 
by heathen or infidels not hitherto known to Christians. 
So had he discovered the North-West Passage, and 
reached India by that route, he would still have been 
debarred from poaching on the Portuguese preserve. 
The conditions imposed bear a striking resemblance 
to those imposed later on their subjects by the kings 
of Spain. If British discovery had depended alto- 
gether on voyages made by royal licence the British 




A Galleon of the Fifteenth Century 

(Jurien de la Graviere) 







:a:tS5*:- X^r" 



A Galley of the Sixteenth Century 

(Jurien de la Graviere) 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 1 19 

system would probably have prospered no better than 
the Spanish. 

Cabot sailed from Bristol in the Matthew in 1497, 
and, on June 24th, discovered Newfoundland. He 
then went on to St. John's and the continent of North 
America. He returned, bringing with him three men 
from Newfoundland, just as Columbus brought back 
the Caribbean Indians. He was persuaded that the 
land he had discovered was the dominion of the Cham 
of Tartary, just as the followers of Vasco da Gama 
imagined that they had fallen in with the subjects of 
Prester John. Shakespeare, in whose plays the wit, 
wonder, and audacity of the time so bubble forth, 
makes Benedick profess his willingness "to bring you 
the length of Prester John's foot : fetch you a hair from 
the great Cham's beard," rather than hold three words' 
conference with "my Lady Tongue." Shakespeare 
knew how England had "suffered a sea change," and 
he knew it direct from the men who sat round the tavern 
fire at Wapping or Deptford. His large humanity 
was not learned in the Temple. He lived nearer the 
salt of the sea. 

After Cabot's return, the traders of Bristol formed 
the "Company of Merchant Adventurers," seeking 
the North-West and North-East Passages to India. 
Sir Hugh Willoughby, in 1553, essayed to find the 
latter, but perished with seventy of his men in the ice. 
The rest, headed by Richard Chancellor, reached 
Archangel, and travelled thence to Moscow. This led 
to the estabHshment of trade with Russia through the 
English Muscovy Company. 

Thus we come to the reign of Elizabeth, well called 
"spacious." With the loss of Calais in Mary's reign 
went the last physical link with the Continent, the 



120 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

last pretension to the Kingdom of France, save for the 
inscription which the kings retained on their coins,, 
in the same spirit as the Spaniards, to this day, de- 
scribe Gibraltar as "in temporary occupation of the 
English," and send an officer once a year to inspect the 
fortress. Of all the old Duchy of Normandy, there 
remained to the line of William the Conqueror only 
the Channel Islands, the natural appanage of the race 
which had prevailed at sea. The fleet was no longer a 
ferry to the possessions of English sovereigns abroad, 
but a weapon consciously maintained to defend the 
shores of the kingdom and to protect its ever-growing 
trade overseas. English fishermen swarmed to the 
banks of Newfoundland, and, though inferior in num- 
bers to the French, yet claimed the mastery and 
graciously extended to the others their protection. Fro- 
bisher voyaged twice to the north in search of the fabled 
Eldorado, which, had he been able to sail across a frozen 
continent, he might "indeed have found on the Yukon. 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert essayed the first settlement on 
the shores of the North American Continent, only to 
perish gallantly at sea. Finally, Hawkyns and Drake 
now began their brilliant filibustering career, to be 
followed later by Raleigh. Gold was still the object 
of their quest. But, unlike the Spaniards, they sought 
it, not on the land, but by the sea, and from the Span- 
iards themselves. ''Sic vos, non vobis!'' The Dons 
laboured, and the English entered into the fruit of 
their labour. 

All this is a well-known story. Despite the start 
which the Spaniards and Portuguese had obtained, it 
was an Englishman who first circumnavigated the globe, 
for although Magellan's ship, the Victoria, accom- 
plished the voyage, Magellan himself did not live to 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY .121 

return. Drake's career of adventure began in 1567, 
when he commanded the Judith in the expedition which 
ended in Hawkyns's amazing exploit at Vera Cruz. 
After harrying the Don in the Spanish Main, Hawkyns 
cast anchor in the strongly defended harbour of that 
port, and, under its very guns, demanded of the Span- 
iards provisions and water. There were treasure ships 
in the harbour, and of these Hawkyns determined to 
possess himself. Thirteen Spanish ships of war ap- 
proached, so the Englishman had to abandon his 
project. But he sent word to the governor that "it 
did not suit his purpose that the Spanish ships should 
enter the harbour," and for three whole days the 
Spanish Admiral remained outside. Then it was ar- 
ranged that he should enter, and that Hawkyns should 
hold the island against which his ships were moored. 
The Spaniards, however, broke the agreement and 
attacked the English ships while Hawkyns and most 
of his men were ashore. After a fierce engagement 
against odds, two English ships succeeded in putting 
to sea, and Hawkyns and his surviving men rowed after 
them. The other three vessels were destroyed. Half- 
starved, Hawkyns, Drake, and a few followers at length 
reached England. 

Nothing could daunt Drake, however. Born in 
Devon and nurtured in Kent, the seafaring blood of 
Viking ancestors ran in his blood full tide. Two years 
later, he had fitted out two small ships, the Dragon of 
seventy tons, and the Swan of twenty-five. He shipped 
seventy-three men and boys, with whom he set out to 
harry the Don. He fell in with another ship of fifty 
tons, whose crew raised his force to one hundred and 
twenty. He reached the Isthmus of Darien, intend- 
ing to attack Nombre de Dios. But information that 



122 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

a train of mules laden with treasure was on its way to 
the sea induced him to alter his intention. He am- 
bushed the train, took the treasure, buried it, and then, 
from the peak in Darien, he beheld the Pacific Ocean. 
His soul was fired by the prospect thus presented. He 
sought no more fighting, but returned to England and 
fitted out a new expedition of five ships. The largest 
was the Pelican, later called the Golden Hind, of 125 
tons, which was Drake's flagship. He had one hun- 
dred and sixty gentlemen adventurers with him. He 
reached the Straits of Magellan on May 20, 1578, 
got into fearful weather, and arrived at Valparaiso 
with his own ship only. Outside the port he came upon 
a great galleon, the crew of which, never dreaming 
that an Englishman was in the neighbourhood, greeted 
him with cheers. Drake ran alongside, and, hoisting 
the English flag, sprang into the chains sword in hand. 
The Spaniards recognised him. El Draque, the 
incarnation of the Evil One, was upon them. They 
screamed with terror and jumped overboard without 
so much as drawing their swords. Drake took treasure 
to the value of £80,000. But the comedy did not 
end there. The escaped sailors spread the panic to 
the city, and the English landed only to see the in- 
habitants, headed by the governor, streaming away to 
the mountains. 

From Valparaiso, Drake sailed to Tarapaca. Here 
the comedy became broad farce. The English found 
piles of silver bars lying loose on the wharves, and 
their guardians fast asleep. They removed the whole 
lot without waking them, and then lay in ambush while 
another mule convoy approached. The muleteers un- 
loaded their burdens and lay down for a siesta. The 
English had that lot too. Then the Golden Hind sailed 




A Galley Running before the Wind 

(Jurien de la Graviere) 




■A htiii fttSmMiAt 



An Admiral's Galley 

(Furttenbach, Architectura Navalis, 1612) 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 123 

out of harbour and shaped her course for Lima. Here 
there were twelve great galleons in harbour with their 
crews ashore. But they were empty of treasure, so 
Drake contented himself with cutting their cables and 
sending them adrift while he started off after the 
Cacafuegos, a galleon which had started two days be- 
fore, "her ribs abulge with bullion for the King of 
Spain's own treasury." Drake overhauled her, and 
the Spanish captain, never suspecting the presence of 
an Englishman in those waters, in which he felt lonely, 
shortened sail in order that the Golden Hind might come 
up with him. The galleon was taken almost without 
a fight. With his very ballast replaced by gold and 
silver, Drake sailed off across the Pacific in order to 
avoid a squadron which was now lying in wait for him 
near the Straits of Magellan. After a narrow escape 
from shipwreck off the Philippines, he arrived at 
Plymouth on September 25, 1580, with spoil worth 
three millions sterling of our money. Mendoza, the 
Ambassador of the King of Spain, protested vehemently 
against Drake's insolence in daring to sail in the Span- 
ish Main. Said Elizabeth in reply: "Tell your Royal 
Master that a title to the ocean cannot belong to any 
people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature 
nor public use and custom permitteth any possession 
thereof." Thus Gloriana asserted the principle of 
the "Freedom of the Seas." The gauntlet was down. 
Philip slowly, lethargically, timidly, began to make 
him ready to take it up. 

The voyage of the Golden Hind will stand out for 
all time as a model of the "joyous venture." Accord- 
ing to the ideas of our time, of course it was piracy, 
naked and unabashed. But what Englishman is there 
so free from original sin that he can read the recital 



124 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

without glorying in the light-hearted daring of his 
countrymen? Besides, it must be remembered that, 
at this time, and for long afterwards, it was quite a 
common occurrence for two nations to be essentially 
at war while, for political reasons, their governments 
remained nominally at peace. Elizabeth herself was 
aiding the rebellious subjects of the King of Spain in 
the Low Countries. She had her reasons for main- 
taining the pretence of peace, and Philip had his. But 
the Spaniards were capturing and torturing English 
seamen whenever they could, as a penalty for infring- 
ing the monopoly granted by the Pope, and the wrath 
of the English was rising to the boiling point. Drake 
himself, God-fearing as he was dauntless, truest of 
patriots, though not insensible (any more than was 
Nelson) to the advantages of worldly gain, believed 
himself to be engaged in a holy war, and we may fairly 
adopt his view. The sensitive spot of the Spanish 
Empire was the sea communications by which the 
wealth on which Spain had come to depend reached 
her shores. To capture that wealth in transit was the 
surest means available to the English, who had no army 
which could hope to contend with the famous Spanish 
infantry, to cripple the resources of Philip, to ward 
off the menace from their own land, and to aid the 
people of the Low Countries who were struggling against 
the greatest captain of the age, the Duke of Alva. 
Elizabeth's real opinion is shown by the fact that she 
knighted Drake and ordered the Golden Hind to be 
preserved at Deptford as a memorial of the valour of 
her seamen. That covetousness had small share in 
prompting Drake's actions is shown by the fact that 
he kept no more than £10,000 of the spoil for himself 
and set aside a like sum for his crew. The rest was 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 125 

kept in the Tower until matter were settled with Spain, 
and eventually, no doubt, found its way into Elizabeth's 
Treasury. 

Adventures now poured thick and fast upon 
"Frankie." Two or three years later he was off Vigo 
with a fleet fitted out by the City of London to effect 
the delivery of some British sailors who had been 
treacherously made captive by the Spaniards. The 
Queen told Drake that, if it suited her purpose, she 
should disown him. 

"As you will, Madam," he replied. "Let me have 
a free hand, and it may be an affair of privateers, and 
nothing to do with the Government of England. My 
plan is to find the crews that were caught and set them 
free — and get what else we can, Madam." 

"I am supposed to know nothing about that," was 
the Queen's cautious answer. 

In the end, Drake did not succeed in rescuing the 
crews, nor did he acqmre much booty. But he sacked 
San Domingo and burned the shipping there, adding 
to the terror of his name. By 1587, there was sterner 
work in hand. The news of the Armada had reached 
England, and Drake set forth to discover how much 
truth there was in it. He arrived off Cadiz, which was 
crowded with ships. A great galleon was moored across 
the entrance to the harbour, but he fired on her and 
sank her. The crews of the Spanish ships leaped over- 
board at the terror of his name. Drake sank no fewer 
than thirty-five, or, according to some accounts, eighty 
of Philip's ships of war. He was about to repeat the 
exploit in the Tagus when imperative orders from the 
Queen called him home. 

Philip had at last made up his mind to war. A 
stream of messengers from Rome urged him to action. 



126 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

The crown of England was promised by the Pope to 
him who would invade the country and crush the heretic 
Queen. Philip, an eldest son of the Church, was un- 
able to withstand the pressure. He relied on the aid 
of a Roman Catholic rising in England, a hope which 
was bitterly disappointed. The nation had been welded 
into one, as we have seen, in the five hundred years 
which had passed since the Norman Conquest. To 
preserve his island home inviolate was the first care 
of every Englishman. His sovereign, though her 
descent derived from the Norman, had in her the blood 
of Cedric and of Arthur; she was the daughter of 
Henry, who had freed the realm from the usurped 
authority of Rome in temporal matters, a thing welcome 
even to those Englishmen who still looked upon the 
Pope as the spiritual Head of Christendon. Histo- 
rians may paint Elizabeth as an elderly coquette;, 
faithless, fickle, cruel, and miserly. But to her sub- 
jects, she was Gloriana, worshipped in verse and prose, 
appealing to their chivalry by her sex, and to their 
manhood by her lion heart. She intrigued; she 
starved her sailors both of food and ammunition. But 
to one and all who served her she was the embodiment 
of right and liberty, while Philip was the enemy of 
mankind. They knew the gloomy tyrant. He had 
been husband to an English Queen. 

The Royal Navy was made ready for the fight. The 
Lord High Admiral, Howard, had his flag in the Ark 
Royal. Drake, as Vice-Admiral, had his in the Re- 
venge. The first Dreadnought was in the fleet, and the 
first Swiftsure, Triumph, Warspite, and Bonaventure; 
the first Lion and the first Tiger. Elizabeth was fond 
of coining strange names for her ships. Strangest of 
all, the Elizabeth Jonas, so called because, said the 




A Galleass of the Seventeenth Century 




A Galleass 

(Furttenbach, Architectura Navalis, 1629) 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 127 

Queen, she trusted the Lord to deliver her out of her 
present peril as He delivered Jonas from the belly of 
the fish. There were, besides, a crowd of armed 
merchantmen. 

Philip's plan for the invasion of England, or, perhaps, 
one should say the plan of Parma and Santa Cruz, 
was, in all essentials, that of Napoleon in 1803. The 
fleet, with six thousand sailors and seventeen thousand 
soldiers on board, was to sail from sundry Spanish 
ports and rendezvous off the Scilly Islands. Parma, 
with an army of 36,000 men, awaited it at Dunkirk. 
Could the Spaniards maintain the command of the 
Channel for twenty-four hours, the doom of England 
would be sealed. Parma, like Napoleon, waited. 
But everything went wrong with the undertaking. 
Santa Cruz died and the command was given to the 
Duke of Medina Sidonia, a man so incapable that 
even his wife laughed when she heard of his appoint- 
ment, saying he would be better on a horse than in a 
ship. Rascally contractors supplied the fleet with 
stinking provisions and foul water; many men were 
sick and died from this cause. Finally, when at last 
the Armada put to sea, it was caught in a tempest and 
driven into Corunna in a shattered condition. 

What, meanwhile, were the English doing? Drake, 
from a bold buccaneer, now revealed himself as a naval 
strategist of the first order. His letters to the Queen 
and Walsingham lay down the strategy on which 
England has ever since relied for her safety. Writing 
to the Lords of the Council on March 30, 1588, he says: 

My very good lords, next under God's mighty protection, 
the advantage and gain of time and place will be the only 
and chief means to our good, wherein I must humbly be- 



128 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

seech your good lordships to persevere as you have begun, 
for that, with fifty sail of shipping, we shall do more good 
upon their own coast than a great many more will do here 
at home, and the sooner we are gone, the better we shall 
be able to impeach them. 

He wrote in a similar sense to the Queen. 

Elizabeth and her counsellors, however, would have 
none of it. Her Majesty was even incensed with 
Drake because he wasted good powder at gun-practice. 
She still professed that she did not wish to give offence 
to the King of Spain. A great deal has been said and 
written about the Queen's parsimony and about the 
lack of provisions and powder. There is no doubt 
that both were lamentably short. When the English 
set out to chase the Armada up Channel, they had 
only two days' supply of powder on board their ships. 
But there is this much to be said for Gloriana. The 
idea of making a long sojourn off the enemy's ports 
was new, just as the whole theory of sea-fighting 
evolved by Howard, Drake, and Hawkyns was new, 
and born of their experiences when roving the Spanish 
Main. This had been denied by good authorities, 
who point out that, from the time of Hubert de Burgh, 
it had been the wont of the English to go forth and meet 
the enemy at sea, or attack him in his ports. Most 
true. But these were military expeditions on ship- 
board. The ships were regarded as transports, or, at 
most, as fields of battle on which soldiers fought 
according to the rules of land-warfare. The cannon, 
when cannon began to be used, were meant to mow 
down the enemy's men-at-arms and to hew a way 
through his defences — like the preparatory bombard- 
ment of to-day — in order that the boarders might 




*^ o 
O a, 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 129 

bring the affair to an issue in a short and sharp tussle. 
But that a fleet should keep the sea, beating on and off 
the enemy's ports; waiting for him to come out in 
order to destroy him by gun-fire at long bowls, was 
something new in kind, and not merely an extension 
of the old theory of warfare to more distant waters. 
Our own record as to ammunition supply in the present 
war is not beyond criticism, and the story goes that 
a certain general, in apportioning the amount of shell 
for a certain operation, was guided by the precedent 
of Inkerman. We may, therefore, judge the mis- 
calculation of Elizabeth and her advisers lightly. But 
her seamen had no choice save to fight on the new 
model. The little English ships would have stood no 
chance against the mighty galleons of Spain, had it 
come to boarding. They fought as experience of the 
sea had taught them to fight, and against a lands- 
man's navy, they proved themselves invincible, despite 
all the miscalculations and errors of the Queen's 
Government. 

The evening of the day at the end of July, 1588, on 
which Drake boarded his flagship, after finishing the 
famous game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe, saw the Eng- 
lish victory secure. A Spanish flagship was captured; 
two more great galleons were sunk. The English 
had suffered hardly a scratch. All through the week 
the Spaniards lumbered up the Channel with the 
English hanging on to them, but never giving them a 
chance to close. On the Sunday night following, the 
Armada was in Dunkirk Roads, and Howard loosed 
fireships against it. In terror, the Spaniards cut their 
cables. Seventy ships of war went north and took 
no further part in the fighting. The rest found them- 
selves on the Goodwin Sands, where some went aground 



130 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

and all were hotly attacked, lying in a huddled mass, 
by the English fleet. They crashed together; they 
fired into each other, and sank their own ships. They 
were not seamen, and they did not understand the new 
form of sea-fighting by which the artillery of the ships 
decided the battle instead of merely preparing the way 
for the assault of the men-at-arms. But they fought 
to the bitter end, with a heroism worthy of the gallant 
Spanish infantry, of which the ship's complements 
were mainly composed. At last came dead silence 
after the roar of the fray. Both sides had expended 
their powder, and the shattered remnant of the Span- 
ish fleet took the opportunity to follow their seventy 
consorts to the northward. Sixty ships and ten 
thousand starved and scurvy-stricken men were all 
that found their way home north-about. The English 
lost no single ship, while of men but sixty-eight were 
killed or wounded. The victors gave the glory to 
God. "Efflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt." The words 
stand to-day on the base of Drake's statue on Ply- 
mouth Hoe. It is the seaman's way. "These men 
see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep : 
For at His word the stormy wind ariseth which lifteth 
up the waves thereof." That sense of dependence on 
Providence is not the least of the sources of strength 
which attend sea power. 

The ruin of the Armada ended the direct threat to 
England; but it by no means ended the war. The 
further events and their consequences, however, will 
be best dealt with hereafter. But there are a few points 
which must be noticed here. First of all, it should be 
realised that the fleet which won the victory was by 
no means wholly, or even mainly, composed of the 
Queen's ships. Elizabeth had increased her father's 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 131 

navy by comparatively few vessels. Of the forty-nine 
sail which followed Drake up Channel, only thirteen, 
according to some authorities, were Queen's ships of 
four hundred tons and above. Including cutters and 
pinnaces, there were no more than thirty-eight ships 
all told flying her ensign. The rest of the fleet con- 
sisted of armed merchantmen and ships fitted out 
by private adventurers. These were very sparsely 
manned, some of them having no more than thirty men 
all told. The seamen of Britain, therefore, were, of ne- 
cessity, also the sea fighters. Good man as the English- 
man was ashore, we had no standing army, no body of 
trained and disciplined infantry like the Spaniards. 
But our sailors had learned war on the Spanish Main. 
In the latter stages of the war, soldiers were embarked 
to make descents on the Spanish coast; but sea fight- 
ing and land fighting were kept distinct. Later again, 
in Cromwell's time, the New Model suppHed soldiers 
for service afloat. After that, it became the recognised 
rule that sea fighting was the function of the "tar- 
paulin." The surviving exception is the Royal Regi- 
ment of Marines. 

The absence of soldiers on shipboard dictated the 
tactics of the running fight, for the seamen had to fight 
the guns as well as to work the ship. No boarding 
parties could be spared, nor men to repel boarders. 
The handiness of the ships themselves contributed 
to dictate the advantage of the running fight. The 
Spanish formed their line in a crescent, in the hope 
that the EngHsh would run in between the horns, which 
would then envelop them and bring them to close 
action. But Drake's fast and weatherly ships frus- 
trated this plan. They ran under the stern to fire 
and made off before the Spaniards could turn to bring 



132 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

their broadsides to bear; sometimes coming so close 
that the enemy could not depress his guns sufficiently 
to hit them, sometimes "playing long bowls," which 
their better gunnery enabled them to do with effect 
and impunity. 

When people talk grandiloquently about the English 
loving to close and disdaining to fight at long range, 
they ignore the whole trend of our naval history and 
miss the point which marks the special aptitude of our 
seamen: namely, that they have never for very long 
allowed themselves to be enslaved by a theory. They 
have adapted their means to their end. When Nelson 
went into action, he was wont to make the signal, 
"Engage the enemy more closely." Drake, every 
whit as brave a man as he, played "long bowls." The 
object of all fighting is decisive victory. Nelson, 
whose ships were of equal or superior fighting weight 
to those of his opponents but who was frequently 
outnumbered, saw that decisive victory could best be 
gained by doubling on a part of the enemy's line and 
trusting to the superior discipline and gunnery-training 
of his men. Drake, whose ships were of inferior fight- 
ing force, saw that he could best utilise that superior 
fighting skill, which was his as well as Nelson's, by 
lying off and engaging at a distance. Of what service 
would bull-dog bravery be, if the fleet on which the 
safety of England depended was wiped out? Each of 
these great seamen attained his end by adapting his 
means thereto. That the end was obtained is the 
only thing which matters. The lesson holds good 
for to-day. 

In speaking of the Elizabethan navy, one talks of 
Drake as naturally as, two hundred years later, one 
talks of Nelson. There were other famous seamen 



THE AGE OF DISCOVERY 133 

in the days of each, and neither, as it happened, ever 
held the chief command. But their dazzling person- 
alities eclipse all their worthy compeers. They had 
little in common save devotion to their country, 
courage and supreme insight and skill. But their 
names stand out in the eyes of their countrymen above 
the Howards, Rodneys, Howes, and St. Vincents, and 
are only approached by those of Blake, Cromwell's 
great general at sea, and Hawke, the victor of Quiberon 
Bay. 

Drake fully deserves all the fame which is his. He 
was the type of that full-blooded, sunny, chivalrous 
Elizabethan life, which, in other spheres, gave us Sir 
Philip Sidney and Shakespeare and Spenser. There 
were meanness and cruelty and chicanery in the age 
as in every other; but the breath of the salt sea blew 
through the musty dungeons of the Middle Ages; 
eyes grown dim in the darkness rejoiced in the sunlight 
of the open day, and cramped muscles stretched them- 
selves in an enlarged world. The roll of Drake's drum 
called England to her destiny. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 

After the Armada had been hounded by Howard 
and Drake through the Channel and scattered by the 
breath of God in its voyage north-about, the war against 
Philip changed its character. Elizabeth and her coun- 
sellors had not yet learned the full meaning and advan- 
tage of sea power. The conditions of defence were 
known; those of attack had not yet been sufficiently 
studied. The Queen was immersed in continental 
politics and concerned for her position as the protector 
of Protestantism. Before the Armada, she had already 
sent an ill-equipped expedition under Leicester to the 
Low Countries to assist the revolted subjects of Philip. 
In 1589 she determined to give the Spanish King a 
Roland for his Oliver by invading his home territories. 
An expedition of two hundred sail and twenty-one 
thousand men was quickly fitted out at Plymouth 
under the command of Drake and Norris, and with it 
went one Don Antonio, a Churchman, who aspired 
to the crown of Portugal, and was expected to stir up 
a revolt among the Portuguese. The expedition sacked 
Corunna and then sailed for the Tagus, landing and 
marching through Torres Vedras to Lisbon. It met 
with some success in the fighting, but returned with 
disastrous loss from disease to England. 

Two years later occurred the heroic incident of the 

134 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 135 

Revenge: the fight of the "one and the fifty-three" off 
the Azores, It was one of those mad episodes in our 
history which, Hke the Balaklava charge, are "mag- 
nificent, but not war." So long as we remember this 
fact and do not expect all British commanders to 
behave in a harebrained fashion under all circum- 
stances, such incidents have a value which is worth the 
gallant blood shed. They are a reminder to us and to 
the world that, in the veins of the "nation of shopkeep- 
ers," there runs not the cold blood of commerce alone, 
but a tide of fiery courage which no so-called "military 
nation" has ever surpassed. 

Whether Sir Richard Grenville was merely insub- 
ordinate to his commander-in-chief, or whether, as 
Tennyson tells us, he stayed with the consent of the 
latter to get his sick men on board and was then cut 
off, his exploit and his end warmed the courage of the 
men of his own day, and have warmed the courage of 
British seamen ever since. A country cannot afford 
to look coldly on such great fights against odds if it 
would see the martial spirit of its sons maintained. 
The fight of Drake's old flagship, however, was but an 
episode in one of the usual raids on Spanish communi- 
cations, and had little real military significance, so 
far as the larger purposes of the war were concerned. 

These raids continued for two years longer, when 
Elizabeth's attention was diverted to a new enterprise. 
She espoused the cause of Henry of Navarre, in her 
character of Protestant champion. English troops 
were sent to France and fought bravely, if without 
decisive effect, against the Cardinal of Bourbon and 
the Catholic League. Then, in 1593, Henry decided 
that "Paris was worth a Mass," and Elizabeth lost 
interest in him. Her main attention was once more 



136 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

given to the Spanish War. In the security given to 
her realm by her mastery of the sea, she could afford 
to indulge her feminine temperament, varium et muta- 
bile semper, as other female sovereigns, beset with 
land frontiers — Maria Theresa for instance — could not. 

In 1596, Hawkyns and Drake set out once more to 
raid the Spanish Main. The expedition proved to be 
the last undertaken by either famous seaman. They 
were repulsed from Porto Rico, where Hawkyns died. 
Drake pushed on to Nombre de Dios and landed men. 
They were, however, harassed by the Spaniards. Drake 
caught a fever which ended his glorious career. In 
the same year, hearing that Philip was once more 
assembling a fleet for the invasion of England, Eliza- 
beth sent a powerful armament, consisting of a hundred 
and twenty ships with seven thousand soldiers and 
six thousand seamen, besides some Dutch auxiliaries, 
against Cadiz. The army was commanded by the 
Earl of Essex, the fleet by Lord Effingham, with Lord 
Thomas Howard and Sir Walter Raleigh among his 
subordinate commanders. Cadiz was captured and 
the Spanish fleet destroyed. Next year, a similar 
expedition was sent against Ferrol and Corunna, but 
the attempt to capture these two places was abandoned, 
the fleet proceeding to the Azores, where Raleigh 
captured Fayal. 

In these two last expeditions of Elizabeth's reign, 
Drake's policy of "impeaching the enemy off his own 
shores" is allowed to prevail. After his death, Eliza- 
beth does of her own accord what he could seldom wring 
consent from her to do. The true principle of the 
naval defence of this country is established, never 
again to be entirely dropped. And, with it, the seeds 
of that system of amphibious strategy which, up to 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 137 

the present, we' have employed in all our great wars, 
are sown. That we have departed widely from it in 
the present struggle is a fact which there are many 
reasons to regret. The circumstances of August and 
September, 19 14, however, left us no choice in the 
matter. Experience shows that our insular position 
does not exclude us from the European system and that 
we can never cut ourselves free entirely from Continen- 
tal preoccupations which, from time to time, must 
necessitate intervention on the scale of a Continental 
Land Power. It must, however, always be a disad- 
vantage for us to be so compelled. 

Elizabeth left England supreme in war at sea. The 
decrepitude of the navy of Spain had been fully ex- 
posed; Spanish communications lay at the mercy of 
the English seamen. Our country had now a race of 
hardy sailors who had developed a method of fighting 
which was bred of the sea itself, and a numerous marine 
which made an end of the necessity to hire ships from 
Genoa, Holland, or the Hansa, as had previously been 
the custom with English monarchs. But for purposes 
other than fighting, the sea power of England was yet 
in its infancy. There was little trade, properly so 
called, in the Atlantic, save the Newfoundland fisheries. 
The blame must rest on the Spanish system, not on 
the English; but the fact remains that the various 
expeditions fitted out by the Merchant or Gentlemen 
Adventurers had buccaneering for their object. Sea 
trade was confined principally to Antwerp and the 
north of Europe. The Turkey Company was founded 
in 1 58 1 and the East India Company in 1600. But it 
was only shortly before the latter date that English- 
men made the voyage round the Cape of Good Hope 
to India which the Portuguese had made a hundred 



138 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

years before. Colonisation had proved, so far, a 
failure. Sir Humphrey Gilbert had taken possession 
of Newfoundland in the name of the Queen in 1583; 
but the claim was disputed then and many years 
later by the French. The attempt of his step-brother, 
Raleigh, to colonise Virginia came to nought. The 
sea spirit, however, had been aroused from top to 
bottom of the nation. That was the great gain of 
the Elizabethan age to English sea power. The full 
fruits were to be garnered later. 

The two following reigns saw a change of spirit from 
that of the Tudors which was inimical to the growth 
of English, or, as we ought now to call it, British, sea 
power. James L, "the wisest fool in Christendom," 
as others called him, or "the Caledonian Solomon," 
which was the title preferred by himself, had no desire 
but to be known as "The Peacemaker." The high 
claims of kingship ever put forward by the Stuarts 
made him seek more intimate relations with Continental 
dynasties. He was completely under the thumb of 
Gondomar, the astute ambassador of the Court of 
Spain, who dangled before him hopes of a marriage 
between "Baby Charles" and the Spanish Infanta. 
Gondomar at any rate achieved his purpose of bringing 
about a peace between England and Spain, which left 
the hands of his master free to prosecute the long war 
against the Dutch, to separate the maritime Powers 
from one another, and to intervene in the affairs of the 
German Empire with such effect that James's own 
son-in-law, the Elector Palatine, was driven into exile. 
Corruption crept into the administration of the navy 
under James's pacifist rtile, and the exertions of Henry, 
Prince of Wales, seconded by the able ship-designer, 
Phineas Pett, who began his career at this time, availed 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 139 

little to check the abuses. Pirates swarmed round the 
coast, many of them the stout English seamen of the 
days of Elizabeth, who, finding neither employment 
nor pay in their motherland, took service with the 
Barbary States. James in vain offered pardon to all 
who would return to their allegiance. "I have no 
intention of obeying the orders of one king, when I am 
in a way a king myself," said the haughty pirate, Eston. 
James was fain to give leave to a Dutch squadron 
under Lambert to visit Irish harbours and root out the 
pirates who were sheltering there. 

The sea-borne trade of the country not being as 
yet upon a sure footing, the peace with Spain caused 
mercantile shipping to languish. The Venetian Am- 
bassador noted with astonishment that, at one juncture, 
only twenty merchantmen were to be found in the Port 
of London. The merchants suffered losses so heavy 
when they imported goods in English ships which 
received no protection that they actually welcomed 
their arrival in Dutch bottoms. The Hollanders then 
began to emulate the example of the Hansa and set 
up mercantile houses of their own in London. Trade 
languished because the Royal Navy was too weak to 
defend it; the Royal Navy languished because it 
lacked the seamen who were its lifeblood, and who 
were driven to seek service elsewhere. So the whole 
sea affair was moving in a vicious circle. But, at the 
root of all the mischief were corruption, maladminis- 
tration, and faulty policy. Neither James nor Charles 
could ever man a fleet completely during the occasional 
bursts of energy they displayed. Yet all the time 
it was noted by envious foreigners that the British 
warships were the best in the world, and that the mer- 
chantmen were built big and strong like warships. 



140 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

The seed was germinating; the leaven hid in the 
measure of meal was slowly but surely leavening the 
lump. 

The early Stuarts, however, were not altogether 
indifferent to the Navy. That miserable creature 
James I., was, of course, intent upon nothing but his 
disreputable pleasures and the pedantry which he 
mistook for wisdom. But his son. Prince Henry, was 
an enthusiastic "blue water" man, and Charles I., 
when he came to the throne, showed great if misguided 
zeal in naval affairs. Buckingham, too, according to 
his lights, and to serve his own ends, was not only a 
zealous, but also an intelligent, supporter of the Navy. 
The Grand Commission, appointed under James I. 
and continued under his son, worked honestly, hard, 
and successfully to reform abuses in the department of 
construction. It reduced the expenses of the Navy 
by one-half, while, at the same time, it increased both 
its strength and its efficiency. At the end of February, 
1627, the year of the disastrous expedition to the Isle 
of Rhe, the Navy mustered seventy-five ships, besides 
others under repair, while the infant navy of France, 
which Richelieu was fostering, did not amount to more 
than thirty vessels and that of Holland to about the 
same. We had, in fact, the "Two Power Standard." 
In the following year Denbigh commanded a hundred 
and forty ships, many of them merchantmen, however, 
in the attempt to relieve La Rochelle. The "Ship- 
money" fleets were stronger still, and, thanks to the 
genius of Phineas Pett, they were more powerful and 
better armed than those of any rival navy. 

But the canker which ate the heart out of the Stuart 
Navy was implicit in the Stuart system. James and 
Charles were not more arbitrary and tyrannical than 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 141 

Henry and Elizabeth. Yet, whereas the two former 
could get from Parliament what supplies they pleased, 
the latter were continually at variance with the House 
of Commons, and the Navy was starved for lack of 
funds. The Parliamentary watchword, "Grievances 
precede supply," had its coimterpart in the domain of 
foreign politics. In the view of the Stuart kings, the 
function of Parliament was simply to find the money 
necessary to carry out the policy dictated by the will 
of the monarch. The expenditure of the sums granted 
was part of the executive function which belonged 
exclusively to the Crown. The Tudor theory was 
little different; but it is practice, not theory, which 
counts in England, and their practice differed by the 
whole width of the heavens. The Tudors, with their 
true insight, with their reliance on statecraft as distinct 
from the kingcraft of their successors, interpreted the 
wishes of the nation: even its prejudices and passions. 
They put themselves at its head, and they led it. 
Hence their wars were what are called — a detestable 
phrase — "popular" wars. They furthered the reli- 
gious cause which the people had at heart ; they grati- 
fied their desire for wealth. The Stuarts demanded 
money and ships for the furtherance of designs which 
were hateful to the mass of the nation; or, where the 
undertaking itself was popular, as, unquestionably, 
the expedition to Cadiz, the attack at the Isle of Rhe, 
and the attempted relief of La Rochelle undoubtedly 
were, they entangled it with constitutional questions 
or entrusted the execution to favourites whom the 
nation, which had made Drake its darling, most justly 
regarded with the utmost distrust. The fleet was 
allowed to become the symbol of personal rule. 
That the greatest revolt of the English people against 



142 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

their sovereign which our annals have ever known 
should have come to a head over the question of pro- 
vision for the Navy is a peculiar irony of fate. There 
was nothing outrageous or monstrous about Charles 
I.'s demand for ship-money. The maritime counties 
had always been liable to make contribution, in ships, 
if not in money, for the protection of the coasts. Lon- 
don, as we have seen, was subject to a similar liability. 
It was only logical that this obligation should be ex- 
tended to the inland shires at a time when the feudal 
provision for the defence of the realm had passed into 
desuetude and the episode of the Armada had opened 
the eyes of the people to the fact that their safety de- 
pended upon the fleet. Whether John Hampden had 
fully grasped the significance of that fact when he, 
the owner of many manors, went to prison rather than 
contribute one pound eleven shillings and sixpence 
to maintain the Navy, is a debatable point. But it 
in no way touches his claim to be immortalised as a 
type of disinterested patriotism. One pound eleven 
and six was nothing to him. But that even the odd 
sixpence should be arbitrarily exacted was a very great 
matter indeed. 

There is here a very important lesson as to the 
foundation upon which a healthy sea power rests. It 
cannot be made to serve the purposes of absolutism. 
■A war-navy, created and maintained to support the 
policy of a monarch or of a military clique, though it 
may be powerful for a time, will not continue to main- 
tain its position unless it has behind it the conviction 
of the people, of the trading and commercial classes in 
particular, that its existence and power are necessary 
to the furtherance of their prosperity and the main- 
tenance of their security. The necessity for sea 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 143 

power demands a good deal of imagination from the 
people. In the reign of Elizabeth, when wealth was 
pouring into the country as a consequence of the war 
with Spain, and when the Armada was hourly ex- 
pected in the Channel, the necessity was plain enough. 
When the Navy was being used by the Stuarts to 
further the personal policy of James I. or to gratify 
the private animosities of Buckingham, while English 
trade was cut to pieces by pirates, Dunkirkers, or Dutch- 
men, the advantages of sea power in the abstract did 
not appeal. That is to say, though the men of the 
time may not have formulated the doctrine in words, 
the function which the mass of the people looked to 
the Navy to perform was to secure the communications 
of the country and the free use of the sea. 

There are not many tridents, but one. When, as 
at the period we are considering, the hand which has 
held it becomes nerveless or paralysed, or attempts its 
misuse, a stronger hand will be found ready to grasp 
it. The stronger hand, for the moment, was the 
hand of Holland. The rise of Dutch sea power has 
some peculiar features. It had its beginning in the 
herring-fisheries. The saying that "Amsterdam was 
built on the herring" has already been quoted. Its 
prowess in war was learned in the struggles of the 
"Beggars of the Sea" against Philip II. Almost 
driven from the land by the Spanish soldiery, the 
United Provinces maintained the struggle upon the sea, 
where they hampered the communications of the 
Spaniards and could reach the rather grudging hand 
which Elizabeth stretched out to aid them. But the 
Dutch people were, by nature, a nation of traders. 
Secure among their inundations, the burghers of Hol- 
land drew from the seas, not only the means to carry 



144 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

on the bitter struggle for eighty years, but also to grow 
rich beyond all precedent. This was achieved very 
largely by carrying the wealth of the Indies to Spain 
itself, at the very time when the Dutch were in revolt 
against the sovereign of that country, who was also 
their own. The Dutch established themselves as 
traders in the Portuguese settlements in the East. 
They brought back the pepper, the sandalwood, the 
rich silks from India and the Moluccas. They took 
the goods of Northern Europe to Spain and Portugal, 
and they carried back in return the "pieces of eight," 
the product of the mines of Mexico, and the gold of 
Peru. What the Elizabethan mariners acquired by 
violence the Dutch secured by trade, in virtue of the 
prerogative which was theirs as subjects of Philip, 
though they were a rebellious people. Therefore their 
sea power waxed while his waned, and thus they 
found the sinews to carry on the war against him. In 
such strange topsyturvydom did the economic and 
political ideas of the sixteenth century land those who 
held them. 

As the Dutch came to feel their strength, however, 
conquest supplemented trade. The Dutch East India 
Company was formed in 1602. A year later, Amboyna, 
the principal town in the Moluccas, fell to the Dutch, 
to be followed a year later by Malacca. Java was 
appropriated by the Company in 1 610, and Ceylon 
taken from the Portuguese in 1658. In 1 6 14 New 
Amsterdam, now New York, was founded, while be- 
tween 1623 and 1630 the greater part of Brazil fell to 
Holland. Furthermore, the names of Tasmania, or 
Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand, both of which 
places were discovered in 1642, point to the growing 
power of the Dutch upon the sea. But, extensive as 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 145 

the oversea empire of Holland became in this short 
space of time, the chief source of Dutch wealth is to 
be found in their position as "the wagoners of the 
world." 

It is wonderful that a collision between the Dutch 
and the English was delayed as long as it was. There 
are complaints of the "insolence" of the Hollanders 
throughout the reigns of the first two Stuart kings, 
and the low esteem in which they held English sea power 
is plainly enough shown by their frequent incursions 
into English harbours to cut out Spanish ships or 
"Dunkirkers" which had taken refuge there. But 
the Dutch were shrewd enough to see that, until they 
were able to contest the mastery of the sea on some- 
thing like equal terms with the English, their commu- 
nications with the sources of wealth were entirely at 
the mercy of the latter. Until they had made an end 
of Spanish hostility, and until they were assured of at 
least the sympathetic neutrality of France, they had 
everything to lose and nothing to gain by falling out 
with the Protestant Power over the way. 

The first clash came, not with the Stuart monarchy, 
but with the Commonwealth, under the masterful 
hand of Cromwell. There had been a festering sore 
between the two nations for years on account of the 
murder of the English factors at Amboyna, for which 
no reparation had ever been made. The Dutch, on 
their part, were irritated and perturbed by the passing 
of the Navigation Act. But it is a matter of dispute 
to this day upon whom the responsibility rests for the 
actual outbreak. This is commonly the case with 
"inevitable" wars: those, that is, which occur because 
there is no room for both aspirants to walk side by side 
along their chosen path. Tromp, in command of a 



146 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

superior force, trailed his coat before Blake by refusing 
the customary salute to the English flag. Blake fired 
the first broadside. But it is evident that the Dutch 
Government did not, at that moment, wish to fight. 
They sought accommodation. Cromwell was anxious 
lest Holland should afford asylum to the Stuarts, and 
actually proposed a union between the two countries. 
He also insisted that the Dutch should pay to the flag 
of the Commonwealth the same respect which they 
had always paid to the flag of the kings. There was 
stubborn fighting in the Channel and the North Sea 
between the fleets of the two nations, which were about 
equal in numbers. Tromp won one success and drove 
Blake up the Thames, after which he cruised in the 
Narrow Seas with a broom at the masthead, a piece 
of bravado out of keeping with his character and that 
of his nation, and well calculated to provoke the English. 
But the war, as a whole, was completely unfavourable 
to the Dutch, who lost over twelve hundred warships 
and merchantmen in the course of it. This was a 
profound blow to them, since their position in the 
world depended entirely on the preservation of their 
character as safe "wagoners." The causes of the 
conflicts between the British and the Dutch are, after 
all, best summed up in the blunt, almost cynical speech 
attributed to Monk in the ensuing reign of Charles II. : 
"What matters this or that reason? What we want 
is more of the trade which the Dutch now have!" 
That depended on our success in securing the position 
of waywarden of the highway of the nations, the sea. 

The Cromwellian wars in which Blake commanded 
are noteworthy for the fact that engagements were 
fought in the Mediterranean against the Dutch, the 
heralds of a long series of fights between European 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 147 

nations in waters remote from their home bases; for 
the successful bombardment of Algiers — the only one 
until Lord Exmouth reduced the pirates' stronghold 
in 18 16; the taking of Jamaica and Barbados by Penn, 
and the last great deed of Blake in the bombardment 
of Santa Cruz and the sinking of the Spanish fleet in 
harbour there in 1656, Blake died as his ship entered 
Plymouth Harbour on his return from this voyage. 
Although a soldier, bearing the rank of colonel, he had 
restored to the British Navy all the prestige it had 
possessed under Elizabeth and had lost in the years 
between 1604 and 1650. There is a passage in a letter 
addressed by him and Deane to the Speaker while they 
were awaiting the Dutch fleet which brings out in a 
noble light the spirit of duty animating the sailors of 
the Commonwealth. 

"We dare not in this great business to promise any- 
thing for or to ourselves," they say, "because it is God 
alone who giveth courage and conduct with opportu- 
nity and success in the day of His Salvations; only we 
desire the Parliament to believe that we are deeply 
sensible of the extraordinary importance of the present 
service in hand, the high expectation raised of it, and 
the obligation of the great trust reposed in us." Ex- 
pressed in Puritan form, we have in these words the 
abiding spirit of the Navy. 

Whatever we may think of the ethic of the Crom- 
wellian wars with the Dutch, they were, at any rate, 
national. Cromwell had the people at his back. There 
was no difficulty in getting ships, money, and men. 
Blake summed up the Navy's point of view in a sen- 
tence: "It is not our business to meddle in politics," 
he said, "but to keep the foreigner from fooling us." 
The wars of the Restoration were different. Charles 



148 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

II., like his father, was soon in conflict with his Parlia- 
ments, though his rooted determination not to set out 
upon his travels again prevented him from openly 
flouting the representatives of his people. But money 
and men were once more scarce, and corruption again 
began to appear in the administration of the Navy. 
Save for the good work of the estimable Mr. Pepys 
and the sailor-like capacity of the Duke of York, the 
safety of the country might have been worse en- 
dangered than it was. Charles, however, though care- 
less and pleasure-loving, had a very real idea of what 
was involved in the command of the sea. When it was 
suggested that the British fleet, fighting in alliance 
with that of France, should be placed under the com- 
mand of a French officer, he told the Ambassador 
haughtily that "it was the custom of the English to 
command at sea," adding that, if he were to yield, 
his subjects would not obey him. Charles, in fact — 
though no doubt one object which he had in mind was 
to free himself from dependence on Parliament by 
receiving French subsidies — was playing a game of 
"diamond cut diamond" with Louis XIV. He used 
the French to weaken the Dutch by sea. Louis, on 
the other hand, sent his naval contingent with orders 
to take no strenuous part in the fighting, in order that 
the Dutch might weaken the English. But this is to 
anticipate naval events. In the first war the English 
engaged the Dutch alone, the French eventually join- 
ing the latter. The three nations, in fact, now entered 
upon the long contest for the mastery of the sea, in 
which the Dutch were destined to be eliminated first, 
while the struggle between the other two continued to 
the end of the Napoleonic era before it was finally de- 
cided in favour of Britain. The geographical position 







yd 

B 

o 

m 




THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 149 

of the countries concerned supplies the reason for the 
conflict. Holland was the man in possession; the 
other two fought for the pathway to her front door. 
Unfortunately for Holland, she had a back door also, 
and the way of it was overland. The English, having 
obtained the mastery of her by sea, would have been 
only too pleased to aid her in defending the back door 
against the French. They tried to do so, with varying 
success, during the next hundred and twenty years. 
But in the upshot the Dutch were drawn into the 
French orbit and were crushed, so far as their maritime 
power went, between the hammer and the anvil. 

On June 3, 1665, the English and Dutch fleets met 
off Lowestoft. The Duke of York, who was in com- 
mand of the English, put into practice his new system 
of tactics — that of fighting in a close Hne. The result 
was a magnificent victory. The French then joined 
the Dutch, and Monk, now in command, committed 
the blunder of dividing his fleet, with the consequence 
that he was defeated in the four days' battle off the 
North Foreland. There was no disgrace in the defeat, 
however. The English seamen won the respect of 
their foes. "You can kill these EngHsh; you cannot 
beat them," said a Dutch captain. On July 21st, 
the reverse was retrieved off the mouth of the Thames, 
where Monk gave de Ruyter a sound drubbing. Then 
followed the days of shame. Charles argued that, as 
the Dutch were dependent upon trade, there was no 
need to keep an expensive fleet of ships-of-the-line 
in commission. He laid up his fleet in ordinary, and 
de Ruyter came and burned it where it lay at its 
anchorage between Sheerness and Chatham. 

The real importance of this episode has been much 
exaggerated. It was of the nature of a "tip-and-run 



150 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

raid." It had small effect on Britain's command of the 
sea. But it shook her prestige to its foundations, and 
it stands for all time a monument to the folly of think- 
ing that naval warfare can be carried to a successful 
issue by mere commerce-raiding against an enemy who 
possesses a fleet of capital ships. The Peace of Breda 
followed, by which three West Indian islands, taken 
by Holland, were returned to Britain, Nova Scotia 
was restored to France, and the Navigation Acts were 
modified in favour of the Dutch. 

That Act, which was one of the causes of the first 
Cromwellian war with the Dutch, decreed that foreign 
goods should only be brought to English ports in Eng- 
lish ships, or ships of the country of their origin. It, 
of course, struck a deadly blow at the "wagoner" 
trade of the Dutch. The relief obtained by the Treaty 
of Breda did not long avail them, for, in 1672, the new 
Navigation Act of Charles II. imposed regulations more 
stringent still, especially with regard to Colonial trade, 
which had all to be brought to London, and, of course, 
in British bottoms. The Navigation Acts were finally 
repealed in 1842-9, in the sacred name of Free Trade, 
although Adam Smith himself had defended them as 
the one legitimate form of protective legislation, in 
conformity with his principle that "defence is greater 
than opulence." 

In the war of 1672-4, to which reference has before 
been made, in which Britain was allied with the French 
against the Dutch, tactical victory rested with the 
latter in all three of the pitched battles fought, namely 
Solebay, Schoneveld, and The Texel. This was due in 
part to the deficiencies of Prince Rupert as a naval 
commander, and in part to the unwillingness of the 
French to risk their ships. "You fools!" said a Dutch 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 151 

commander to his men, when they expressed surprise 
at the small part D'Estrees bore in the fight, "you 
fools! The French have hired the English to fight 
for them, and they are here to see that they earn their 
wages!" It was a bitter sarcasm, the bitterer because 
it was exactly true. But sarcasm could not help 
Holland. She experienced in this war the weakness 
of her position, for she was attacked on land as well 
as by sea, and, though her sea power brought her 
through on the whole the victor, the damage to her 
trade was such that she never recovered it. The Dutch, 
though in all the stout fighting of the last twenty-five 
years they had never suffered a decisive defeat at sea, 
had definitely lost the game. Britain withdrew from 
the struggle in 1679, and, during the next four years, 
reaped a rich harvest as a neutral, while the Dutch 
suffered disaster in the Mediterranean. English ships 
were, henceforward, preferred to Dutch, as they had 
proved themselves the safer carriers. 

Great Britain had now laid the foundations of her 
oversea Empire. On the mainland of North America, 
she held the New England States, the Carolinas, Mary- 
land, Virginia, New York, and New Jersey. Jamaica, 
Barbados, and other islands in the Caribbean were hers, 
as well as Bermuda and Newfoundland, though her 
claim to the latter was still disputed by the French. 
In the East, Bombay had passed to Charles II. in right 
of his wife, Catherine of Braganza. Supremacy at 
sea, therefore, had become vital, not only for the de- 
fence of the islands, but for safe intercourse between 
the King's possessions. Victory was assured to the 
English in the wars with the Dutch, not by any military 
superiority, but by natural, or geographical causes. 
If the English ships were slightly more powerful than 



152 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the Dutch, the fighting capacity of the sailors was as 
great on one side as on the other, and, on the whole, 
it must be conceded that, in the later wars, at any rate, 
the Dutch were the better led. Blake and Monk were 
great commanders, and James was at least respectable. 
But de Ruyter, the two Tromps, and Evertsen were 
something more than equals of any but Blake. Under 
Cromwell, the discipline of the English was the better; 
but they lost this advantage under Charles II. The 
Government of Holland lacked unity of direction; 
that of Charles was corrupt. But Holland, liable to 
attack on the land side, and with the British Islands 
lying like a breakwater across her path to the ocean, 
had no chance to maintain herself against a Sea Power, 
her equal in might, stubbomess, and almost in wealth, 
unless she could seize a favoiurable opportunity to sub- 
due it on land as well as on sea. Had she been able 
to invade with a sufficient army when de Ruyter lay 
at Sheerness, she might have altered the history of the 
world. But, even had her land forces been sufficient, 
the weakness of her land frontier and the presence of 
jealous enemies on the Continent would have forbidden 
the attempt. When the Dutch did invade, it was with 
the consent of the great majority of the English people. 
Dutch William came in peace. When he came, it was 
to become, like William the Conqueror, rather King of 
England than lord of his own continental dominions. 
At the conclusion of the Dutch Wars, the first 
struggle against the first modern aspirant to universal 
sovereignty arose. Louis XIV. was now on the throne 
of France, and great ministers, who saw better than he 
did himself the way to achieve his end, were striving 
to build up the sea power of France upon a soHd basis. 
Richelieu first made the French formidable upon the 




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THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 153 

water. But it is to Colbert that the credit must be 
given for working out a complete plan by which not 
only was the war-navy to be made strong enough to 
dominate the sea, but the colonies and maritime trade 
necessary to give sea power an assured foundation 
were to be established and fostered. Two things lay 
open — or seemed to lie open — to Louis at this time. 
He might seize the mastery of Europe, with its welter 
of discords, dynastic, religious, and political; or he 
might aim at the dominion of the East and of the New 
World. The way to the first lay across the Rhine, 
the Meuse, and the Scheldt ; the way to the second lay 
across the Channel. If he achieved the second, what 
stood in his way from, hereafter, seizing the first also? 
Leibnitz counselled him to possess himself of Egypt. 
France, he said, wanted peace in the West and war in 
the East. The Turkish power was, in reality, feeble, 
and he who possessed Egypt would possess also the 
islands and coasts of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. 
It was Napoleon's policy a hundred years and more 
before Napoleon's time. It could, at that juncture, 
have been much more easily carried into effect, for 
the position of France for achieving supremacy at 
sea was, on the whole, more favourable than that of 
England. The latter had, as yet, no foothold in the 
Mediterranean, and was, moreover, not yet deeply 
interested in India. France, on the contrary, looked 
on to the Atlantic from Brest and Bordeaux, and on to 
the Inland Sea from Toulon and Marseilles. By her 
position in the Channel Ports, she could hold a great 
part of the British Navy in home waters. She had, 
in Nova Scotia, a foothold on the North American 
Continent, while there was a good chance of the Span- 
ish crown falling to Louis, with the whole of the Ameri- 



154 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

can dominions of Spain, and the vitally important 
Mediterranean positions of Gibraltar and the Balearic 
Islands. To secure this goodly heritage, he needed 
sea power, and this Colbert was ready to give him. 
Colbert's plan, as described by himself, was as follows : 

To organise producers and merchants as a powerful 
army subjected to an active and intelligent guidance, so 
as to secure an industrial victory for France by order and 
unity of efforts, and to obtain the best products by imposing 
on all workmen the processes recognised as best by com- 
petent men. ... To organize seamen and distant com- 
merce in large bodies like the manufactures and internal 
commerce, and to give as support to the commercial 
power of France a navy established on a firm basis and of 
dimensions hitherto unknown. 

It was an ambitious undertaking, and it almost 
succeeded. Colbert's work in the dockyards was so 
efficient that an English officer, prisoner at Brest, de- 
clared that ships were got ready for sea in half the time 
which was required in England. A ship of one hundred 
guns had all her guns removed in five hours with the 
greatest ease and with less hazard than in England 
where the same work would have taken twenty-four 
hours. Colbert enacted something like our Navigation 
Laws; he caused great bonded warehouses to be built, 
in the- hope of thus securing the entrepot trade of the 
world; he reorganised the finances of France, and, for 
the purpose of interesting all classes of society in his 
schemes, he obtained a decree from Louis that the 
nobility might engage in oversea commerce without 
loss of status, so long as they abstained from retail 
trade. This was necessary because it was the ambition 
of merchants to secure patents of nobility. When these 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 155 

were obtained, they were compelled by the laws of their 
order to retire from business. 

Such, in bare outline, was Colbert's plan — a plan 
which very nearly resembles that pursued in Germany 
since the accession of William II., to which the world 
owes those priceless possessions, the Ballins, the Helf- 
ferichs, and their like. It had one weakness. It rested 
on the capricious will of an absolute monarch. Louis 
was offered a choice, and he chose wrongly. The war, 
undertaken in 1672, in alliance with England against 
the Dutch, ruined Colbert's plans and broke his heart. 
In the six years' struggle, the equilibrium of the finances 
so carefully established for the furtherance of the greater 
aims was destroyed; the springs of commerce and of a 
peaceful shipping were exhausted. The military navy 
was maintained in efficiency for some years; then it 
too began to dwindle. Like the seed sown in stony 
places, "having no root in itself, it withered away." 
Louis was committed to those continental plans which 
brought his realm to the verge of ruin and established 
Great Britain instead of France as the mistress of the 
sea. Sea power is too slow in its operation for the 
would-be master of the world; its instruments too far 
removed from his hand. Its aims are the prosperity 
of the many rather than the exaltation of the one. 

Yet we may doubt whether Louis XIV. rather than 
Colbert was not the true interpreter of the genius of 
France. The sunny and pleasant land; the intense 
love of home; the thrifty nature of the people which 
rejects speculative enterprise in favour of the bas de 
laine, lead to the conclusion that Colbert's magnificent 
scheme would have been a plant of hothouse growth; 
that the history of France as a world-empire might 
not have differed greatly from that of Spain. But, 



156 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the character of the people apart, and as a matter of 
pure policy, it is easy to see that Louis took the wrong 
course. The great struggle between Britain and France 
began when James II. lost his throne and Dutch Wil- 
liam succeeded. Louis supported the cause of the 
exiled King. The defeat of Torrington ofE Beachy 
Head, which took place twelve days before William's 
victory at the Boyne, plunged England into consterna- 
tion which was only allayed by the firmness of the 
Queen and the favourable news from Ireland. The 
old English spirit of the Armada time then once more 
took fire. Russell, who succeeded Torrington in com- 
mand of the Channel Guard, and who was known to 
have Jacobite sympathies, declared roundly that pro- 
fessional honour required him to fight as stoutly for 
the king he hated as for the king he loved, and his 
officers assented to this declaration. The hope that 
the fleet might rally to its old commander was utterly 
disappointed. Russell attacked Tourville o£E the Race 
of Alderney with a superior force, routed him, and 
chased him into the harbour of La Hogue, where the 
British seamen in a boat attack destroyed a number of 
French ships at anchor. James II. watched the fight 
from the battlements, exclaiming eagerly, and in his 
own despite, "They'll never beat my EngHsh." 

The victory of La Hogue, secondary in importance 
as a naval encounter, had the effect of shattering the 
belief in the superiority of the French at sea, engendered 
by Tourville's success off Beachy Head, not less in the 
eyes of Louis himself than in the eyes of European 
nations. Spain joined in the war on the side of the 
allies, and the French King withdrew his grand fleets 
from the sea, electing to depend on a war against com- 
merce. He hired out ships to privateers, and lent his 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 157 

best captains and crews. Jean Bart, Forbin, and 
Duguay-Trouin, famous privateersmen, wrought enor- 
mous havoc on British and Dutch shipping; but the 
wealth of Britain and Holland was always increasing, 
nevertheless, and kept the League of Augsburg on foot 
until the Treaty of Ryswick closed the war. France, 
on the other hand, despite her great internal resources, 
became more and more exhausted. "Nations, like 
men," says Mahan, "however strong, decay when cut 
off from the external activities which at once draw 
out and support their internal powers. A nation can- 
not live indefinitely off itself, and the easiest way in 
which it can communicate with other people and renew 
its own strength is upon the sea." The moral for 
to-day is obvious. 

Six years after the Peace of Ryswick, the War of the 
Spanish Succession broke out. The contest was be- 
tween Philip, grandson of Le Roi Soleil, and Charles, 
brother of the Emperor, for the crown of Spain. The 
Sea Powers, Britain and Holland, were determined that 
the House of Bourbon should not wield the resources 
of the whole vast Empire of Spain in conjunction with 
the might and vigour of France. The titular sovereignty 
of decrepit Spain in the New World might be tolerated, 
for the wealth of the Indies was carried in British and 
Dutch bottoms, despite the nominal monopoly which the 
kings of Spain still maintained. But such a foundation 
for French sea power could not be tolerated. Portugal, 
likewise, dreaded the nearness of France, and sought 
the protection of her old ally England. The Empire, 
Britain, and Holland were thus arrayed against Louis 
and that part of Spain which favoured the cause of 
Philip. William III., the strong ruler, and able com- 
mander, in whose person the British and Dutch realms 



158 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

had been united, was now dead, and Queen Anne sat 
on the throne of Britain, herself ruled by the imperi- 
ous Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, whose husband, 
fortunately a man of shining military genius, took 
command of the British and Dutch forces upon the 
Continent. The policy of subsidies which Britain 
was to pursue for the next century was now adopted, 
and the wealth which command of the sea gave was 
poured into the coffers of the Germanic States to sup- 
port the land war. 

At sea, the allies at first contemplated action in the 
West Indies. But, on the Emperor putting forward 
Charles definitely as a candidate for the throne of 
Spain, the plan was changed, and the naval forces were 
employed chiefly in the Mediterranean and off the coast 
of Portugal. Supported by British sea power, the 
Portuguese Government permitted Charles to land at 
Lisbon and undertake the conquest of Spain from that 
base. The great and abiding feature of the sea cam- 
paign was the capture of Gibraltar by Sir George Rooke. 
That event came about almost by inadvertence. Rooke 
had failed in an attempt on Cadiz, and, despite a bril- 
liant affair in which he cut out the Spanish treasure 
galleons in Vigo Bay, he was ill-content to go back to 
England without more substantial success. The Brit- 
ish Admiralty, then as ever afterwards, allowed a very 
free hand to its commanders afloat, so Rooke deter- 
mined to attack the mighty fortress, which he first 
bombarded and then stormed with the boats of his fleet. 
Never did place of such importance fall with such 
ridiculous ease. The Count of Toulouse attempted to 
retrieve its loss, attacking Rooke off Malaga on his 
return. The battle was indecisive. But the British 
retained Gibraltar, and have retained it ever since, 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN 159 

despite several attempts to induce Spain to receive it 
back again. Next to the taking of Gibraltar, the most 
important event at sea was the capture of Minorca, 
with its harbour, Port Mahon, which the British held 
for fifty years. 

It is, however, the silent, unseen pressure exercised 
by sea power, so hard to estimate in words, which 
dominates the War of the Spanish Succession, as it 
dominates other struggles, both before and since. It 
contributed more to the final success of the allies than all 
the victories of Marlborough and Eugene. Lifeblood 
flowed into Holland and Germany through the ports 
of Flanders; the breath of France was gradually 
choked out of her by the strangle-hold which forbade 
her intercourse with the rest of the world. In 17 10, 
Louis was ready to offer almost abject terms of peace. 
The allies, at the instigation of Great Britain, rejected 
them, thinking to achieve the complete overthrow of 
the French. Then, with the death of the Emperor 
and the accession of Charles to the Imperial Crown, the 
situation changed. Britain was no more ready to 
welcome an omnipotent Hapsburg than an omnipotent 
Bourbon. England and Holland withdrew from the 
war, and the Emperor had no choice but to make peace, 
for the lifeblood of sea-borne wealth was cut off from 
him. Historians who habitually omit the factor of 
sea power from their appreciations are wont to con- 
trast the terms which might have been imposed in 1 7 10 
with those, apparently less favourable, ultimately 
accepted in 17 13. They comment freely on the ter- 
giversations and intrigues of Whig and Tory, on the 
treachery of Marlborough and the displacement of his 
spouse in the royal favour by Mrs. Abigail Masham. 
But they obstinately miss the point that the terms of 



i6o SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

1 713 suited Britain, now the supreme Sea Power, far 
better than those offered at the earHer date. Our 
statesmen, whatever their demerits of wisdom and 
character, had now begun to realise, consciously and 
clearly, in which direction the destiny of the country 
lay. 

By the Treaty of Utrecht, Great Britain gained a 
definite recognition of her claim to Newfoundland. 
Nova Scotia and the Hudson Bay Territory were 
ceded to her by France, Gibraltar and Minorca by 
Spain. Her position on the great sea routes was thus 
infinitely strengthened. Holland gained possession of 
the Barrier Fortresses of Flanders with the exception of 
Lille. The respective acquisitions of the two Powers 
show the trend of events. The Dutch gained positions 
requisite for their defence on land, the British, outposts 
for their expansion by sea. After the Treaty of Utrecht, 
the last pretension of Holland to rival her neighbour 
at sea vanished. 

But the advantages won by Britain are not to be 
measured in terms of territory, important as these are. 
To quote Mahan again: 

The sea power of England was not merely in the great 
navy with which we too commonly and exclusively asso- 
ciate it; France had had such a navy in 1688, and it had 
shrivelled like a dry leaf in the fire. Neither was it in a 
prosperous commerce alone; a few years after the date at 
which we have arrived, the commerce of France took on 
fair proportions, but the first blast of war swept it off the 
seas as the navy of Cromwell had once swept that of Hol- 
land. It was in the union of the two, carefully fostered, 
that England made the gain of sea power over and beyond 
all other States ; and this gain is distinctly associated with, 
and dates from, the War of Spanish Succession. Before 



THE MASTERY TO BRITAIN i6i 

that war, England was one of the Sea Powers; after it, she 
was the Sea Power, without any second. This power also 
she held alone, unshared by friend and unchecked by foe. 
She alone was rich, and in her command of the sea and her 
extensive shipping had the sources of wealth so much in 
her hands that there was no present fear of a rival on the 
ocean. Thus her gain of sea power and wealth were not 
only great, but solid, being entirely in her own hands; 
while the gains of other States were not merely inferior in 
degree, but weaker in kind, in that they depended more 
or less on the goodwill of other people. 

Thus ended the first great struggle of Great Britain 
to prevent a Colossus from striding over the globe. 
What follows from the outbreak of the War of Jenkins's 
Ear to Trafalgar forms, in its ultimate meaning, a 
continuous story: the story of one long struggle be- 
tween sea power and land power for ascendancy. The 
maintenance of the balance of power on the Continent 
of Europe henceforward is a conscious policy, and it 
has been so ever since. The first victims of a Napo- 
leon or a William 11. are, necessarily, the small and 
weak States which fringe the seaboard of the Continent. 
To uphold the independence of these States, so that 
no great military Power shall obtain the advantage of 
their maritime position, is vital to British supremacy 
at sea. Thus the War of the Spanish Succession, in 
the logical sequence of events, led straight to the great 
struggle of to-day. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PRIDE AND A FALL 

The Peace of Utrecht was shortly followed by two 
events which had a profound influence on the history 
of Europe for the next seventy years. Shakespeare 
has told us, through the mouth of Caesar, that, 

When beggars die there are no comets seen; 

The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes. 

But it must be confessed that, often enough, changes 
in the occupancy of thrones is a matter of profound 
unimportance. Kings run their course. They do that 
which is right or evil in the sight of the Lord and sleep 
with their fathers. According to the power and author- 
ity of the individual, he leaves a greater or a less im- 
print on the course of events. But the tide of history 
sweeps on, and kings are more often corks on its bosom 
than breakwaters controlling or diverting its course. 

This could fairly be said of the life of Queen Anne, 
though not of the event for which she is chiefly famous: 
her death. It could not be said either of the life or 
death of Le Roi Soleil, for both profoundly influenced 
events. Anne passed from this world in August, 
1 7 14, and Louis almost exactly a year later, both at 
a time when, peace reigned between the nations over 
which they had ruled. Louis was succeeded by his 

162 



PRIDE AND A FALL 163 

grandson, a child of five, and the Regency was exer- 
cised by the Due d'Orleans, who sacrificed the late 
King's policy of a close family union with Spain to his 
private enmity towards Philip V. Orleans sought and 
obtained an English alliance, which he purchased with 
concessions to England, the most important of which, 
from the British point of view, was a guarantee of the 
Hanoverian Succession. Holland joined the alliance, 
and thus the peaceful occupancy of the throne of Great 
Britain was confirmed to George I., so far as the Powers 
of the Continent could guarantee it. Had the Jacobite 
rising in 17 15 been supported by the combined sea 
power of France and Holland, the return of the Stuarts 
might well have been accomplished. 

George L was, of course, a Stuart, upon the distaff 
side. In all other respects he was just a dull German 
boor. Such Stuart qualities as he had were akin to 
those of James I., and not of the more engaging mem- 
bers of the House. His accession is chiefly important, 
so far as he, personally, is concerned, from the fact 
that he was Elector of Hanover as well as King of 
England, and that, unlike our previous royal importa- 
tions, voluntary or constrained, he remained rather 
Elector of Hanover than King of Great Britain. He 
and his immediate successor, at any rate, strove to 
make the foreign policy of this country Hanoverian 
and Continental, rather than British and maritime. 
The country was involved in dynastic struggles abroad 
in which it must seem that it was but slightly con- 
cerned. The War of the Spanish Succession was also 
a dynastic struggle ; but the prospect of a close connec- 
tion between the crowns of France and Spain, and the 
possible union of the extended Spanish Empire with 
the kingdom of France, was a matter which touched the 



i64 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

welfare of Britain far more nearly than the accession 
of Maria Theresa to the Imperial Crown. The pos- 
session of the Low Countries by France was a matter 
of the first concern; that of Silesia by Frederick the 
Great of no concern at all, unless the statesmen of the 
time could project their vision into the yet far distant 
future— in which case they would have no doubt 
been less willing to serve the King of Prussia. It says 
much for these same statesmen, whom, with a few excep- 
tions, such as the great Chatham and Lord Hardwicke, 
we do not hold in very high esteem, that, while spend- 
ing British blood and British treasure, the former 
sparingly, the latter lavishly, on the Continental neces- 
sities of the House of Hanover, they kept the destiny 
of this country as a Sea Power continually before their 
eyes, and made the Continental wars and alliances to 
subserve the true ends of British policy. 

An example of this occurred two years after the 
death of Queen Anne. Spain had recovered a consider- 
able measure of her former power under the adminis- 
tration of Cardinal Alberoni. But one of the fixed 
objectives of British policy was that Spain should not 
recover her former power. The end was justifiable 
enough, seeing that the Spanish system was still main- 
tained in the Spanish possessions abroad. For the 
moment, the policy of Orleans kept the two branches 
of the House of Bourbon apart; but the danger of the 
union of the two Powers, which the War of the Spanish 
Succession had been fought to prevent, might recur 
at any time. It happened that, in pursuance of his 
German policy, George I. was anxious to secure the 
Island of Sicily for the Emperor, giving the House of 
Savoy Sardinia in exchange and compensating Spain 
in Parma and Tuscany. George went so far as to offer 



PRIDE AND A FALL 165 

to restore Gibraltar, but the offer was not accepted. 
Alberoni would not consent to the arrangement upon 
which George had set his heart, and tried to occupy 
Sicily by force. Byng, afterwards Lord Torrington, 
the father of the ill-fated admiral of that name, fell 
upon the Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro and completely 
destroyed it. It was of this battle that an English 
captain, Walton by name, wrote the oft-quoted despatch : 
' ' Sir, We have taken or destroyed all the Spanish ships 
upon this coast, the number as per margin." The 
morality of Torrington 's attack need not be discussed. 
The incident is quoted to show how affairs purely 
continental in their origin were used to serve the mari- 
time purposes of Britain, one of which was to stereo- 
type the naval weakness of Spain. If defence be thought 
necessary, it is to be found in the fact that the Law of 
Nations did not yet run on the sea, and that encounters 
on that element continued to be of frequent occurrence 
while nations remained formally at peace with each 
other. 

The death of Alberoni shortly afterwards put an 
end to the immediate prospect of a Spanish revival. 
But, at the same time, the death of the Due d'Orleans 
put an end to the friction between France and Spain. 
The old gentleman with the scythe used his implement 
with notable impartiality just then. France and 
Spain must be regarded as standing, at this time, and, 
indeed, up to the fall of Napoleon, in much the same 
relation to one another as Germany and Austria-Hun- 
gary do to each other to-day. That gives the key to 
British policy during the next hundred years. For the 
moment a troubled peace was preserved, which lasted 
till 1739. Cardinal Fleury, a pacific old man, assumed 
the conduct of affairs in France, while those of Britain 



i66 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

were in the hands of Robert Walpole, no less a lover of 
peace than he. 

Britain was now in possession of the thirteen colonies 
in North America, which were to constitute the nucleus 
of the United States; of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, 
Jamaica, and other West Indian Islands, while, in the 
East, she already held Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. 
In the Mediterranean, she had possession of the two 
strongholds, of Gibraltar and Port Mahon. But, on 
the route to India, she had, at present, no half-way 
house, the Cape being in the hands of the Dutch. 
Neither East nor West, however, was her position 
undisputed. The French held the valley of the St. 
Lawrence, with Cape Breton Island at the mouth of 
the river, and they claimed all the back-country of 
North America behind the thirteen colonies, down to 
Louisiana, which was also in their possession. They 
had Guadeloupe, Martinique, and half Hayti in the 
West Indies. Spain had the other half of Hayti, and 
Cuba and several other islands, besides Florida, Mexico, 
and the whole of South America, except Brazil. In the 
East, France had Chandernagore, Pondicherry, and 
Mahe in India, besides the Isle of Bourbon and the 
Isle of France; these last two even more important 
than possessions on the mainland, as providing fleet 
bases in the Indian Ocean. France was decidedly more 
favourably situated for acquiring the Empire of 
India than Great Britain. The great Dupleix on the 
mainland and La Bourdonnais in the islands were 
building up French power. Happily for our future, 
neither they nor their methods agreed. La Bourdon- 
nais saw that, if the French were to hold India, it must 
be by sea power. His ideas were the counterpart of 
those held by Almeida, the Portuguese, and, it may be 



PRIDE AND A FALL 167 

added, by the British also, who were to succeed even- 
tually where he failed. Dupleix followed the policy 
of land dominion favoured by Albuquerque. Sea 
power was destined to thwart him in the end, and he 
returned to France, to die impoverished and disgraced, 
just as Clive was setting out upon his victorious career. 
With three Powers competing for the dominion of 
the West, and two for that of the East, there could be 
no lasting peace, especially in face of the prevailing 
ideas of the day on economics. Distant possessions 
were regarded as monopolies of the Mother Country. 
The attempt on the part of any other country to trade 
with them was a violation of right. The sea routes 
which linked the Mother Country to them must there- 
fore be protected, both by armed vessels and by bases 
where these could obtain shelter and refreshment. 
Islands especially were sought for this purpose. In 
the oversea possessions of the three nations there was 
an almost incessant state of war, and this state of war 
of necessity existed also on the routes leading thereto. 
While, therefore, the object of all the countries in- 
volved was the increase of commerce and the wealth 
which commerce brings by developing the resources 
of the new countries and turning them to their own 
advantage; by increasing the number of ships and 
seamen who were the wagoners of the ocean highway, 
this spread of commerce and wealth brought not peace 
to the earth but a sword. The tangible, intelligible 
history of the world's expansion is the history of the 
activities of its war navies. In a later chapter it will 
be shown how, with the establishment of the undoubted 
supremacy of Great Britain on the seas, the outlook 
changed; how the highway was made safe to all nations 
alike, and how all, in the common interest, were invited 



i68 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

to have a share, in the good things offered by the earth 
and the fulness thereof. Another chapter of history 
is now being written. It is the chapter which tells of 
the latest, and we hope the last, attempt to secure 
monopoly of the earth's fulness by military power 
and universal dominion. When the inevitable ' ' Finis ' ' 
is written to that chapter, mankind, in brotherhood, 
may at last reap in the fruit of all the toils and perils 
endured by seafaring men from the time of the Phoeni- 
cians to the present. 

A separate word must here be said about the posi- 
tion of Great Britain in the Mediterranean at the period 
of our history now reached. The struggle for a share 
of the trade of the Spanish dominions in South America 
and the Caribbean is easily intelligible, and so is the 
ceaseless contest with the French on the mainland of 
America and of India and the consequential activities 
of the sea routes leading to either. But it is less evi- 
dent why, before the Suez Canal was made, our states- 
men, granting that they had a clear idea of the interests 
of Great Britain as a maritime State, should have 
shown such insistent concern to achieve and maintain 
a predominant position in the Mediterranean. The 
trade with the Levant, it is true, was large and valu- 
able. But its protection was not the real reason why, 
as in the instance recorded above, and more particu- 
larly later in Nelson's time, we should have concerned 
ourselves so deeply about the fate of Sicil}'-, for instance. 
Toulon could be watched from Gibraltar and Port 
Mahon, both of which places were in our hands. Some 
further reason is required to account for the deeply 
rooted instinct which caused us to cling so tenaciously 
to the Mediterranean position. The true answer 
sounds almost paradoxical. It was in the Mediter- 



PRIDE AND A FALL 169 

ranean that we defended our age-long interest, the 
freedom of the Low Countries. The vital spot of mid- 
European strategy lies on the Middle Danube. It was 
there that the contest between the House of Hapsburg 
and the House of Bourbon must be fought out, and the 
easiest route for the French thereto lay through Italy, 
much of which at this time was a Bourbon possession. 
But Italy is a peninsula, and the route could never be 
safe for the French unless they possessed command of 
the sea. It was, then, to prevent the French from 
enjoying the command of the Mediterranean and thus 
securing their communications with the Middle Danube, 
that, almost at any cost, we held on to a position so 
remote from our home bases. Here our objects were, 
in the main, political. Here we used sea power to 
thwart plans of universal domination. There have 
been many suggestions since that time that we should 
abandon the Mediterranean. With some naval writers, 
the idea has been almost an obsession. But a sounder 
instinct has always prevailed against their logic. In 
later days, since we became the masters of India and 
the importance of Egypt has been grasped, the reasons 
for holding on in the inland sea have, of course, become 
more obvious. The more credit to the statesmen of 
a former date that they should have obeyed the instinct 
at a time when it was little more than prophetic. Nor 
must the fact be overlooked that the instinct of those 
who have sought to grasp world dominion has always 
led them to turn their eyes to the East. Egypt was 
the prize of Cambyses, of Alexander, of Antony, and 
Octavianus. Liebnitz urged Louis XIV. to seize it 
with a view to becoming the master of India; Napo- 
leon's grandiose schemes all turned on eastern empire, 
and the pan-Germanic megalomania has led William 



170 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

II. in the same direction. It has been a true instinct, 
therefore, which has led the nation which depends on 
sea power and which, by and for the sake of sea power, 
has stubbornly resisted all attempts at world-dominion, 
to keep firmly in its hands the control of the pivotal 
region from which radiate the routes by which the 
would-be conqueror must go. 

To return to the narrative of events. A policy of 
pin-pricks, pursued both by England and by Spain, 
led to open war in 1739. The English had acquired 
the right to send a ship a year to trade in Spanish- 
America. They took full advantage of this privilege, 
loading the ship with Spanish produce on one side and 
unloading it into other ships on the other. This 
peculiar method had the connivance of the Spanish 
colonists themselves, as had the bold system of smug- 
gling which was carried on. Only in this way cotdd 
they acquire the wealth denied to them by the narrow 
and selfish policy of the Home Government. Spain, 
too weak to make a national question of the mat- 
ter, attempted to deal with these irregularities locally, 
resorting to the capture of English ships by her garda- 
costas, and, it is said, inflicting torture and mutilation 
on her captured English crews. One Jenkins, a mer- 
chant skipper, returned to England with a complaint 
that his ear had been cut off, and that he was told to 
take it to England and to tell his royal master that he 
would be treated the same way if he dared to voyage to 
the Spanish Main. An impudent, but perfectly safe 
threat. One can as well imagine George I. in Elijah's 
chariot as on the Spanish Main. Jenkins attended at 
the bar of the House of Commons and showed the 
members what was alleged to be his ear. It was said 
afterwards that the ear was made of india-rubber. 



PRIDE AND A FALL 171 

Asked what he did in the unpleasant circumstances 
which had overtaken him, he repHed: "I commended 
my soul to God and my cause to my country." The 
words bear the stamp of an origin nearer Westminster 
than the Spanish Main; but they set England on 
fire. Walpole was unable* to stand against the storm. 
Knowing that France would join Spain, covertly, if 
not openly, and that the Navy was in no condition 
for war, he entertained the gloomiest forebodings. 
When peals of joy rang out from the steeples of London, 
he remarked: "They are ringing the bells now. Soon 
they will be wringing their hands." Thus began the 
War of Jenkins's Ear, soon to be merged into the 
greater struggle of the Austrian Succession. 

In its earlier stages, the war was carried on in waters 
remote from Europe, in the Elizabethan spirit, but 
without the success which attended the Elizabethans. 
The Navy was ill-found and worse manned. The men 
died like flies in the West Indies. The islands, now a 
health resort, were then a veritable pest-house. At 
one period, it is on record that a hundred thousand 
British soldiers and sailors died of disease in a single 
year. Combined naval and military operations which 
were undertaken against the Spanish possessions met 
with a failure which brought about the fall of Walpole, 
who resigned office in 1742 and died three years later. 
That the peace-loving minister had neglected the Navy, 
there is no doubt. But the total number of British 
ships available was respectable, and superior to that 
of France and Spain combined. The lack of men was 
very largely due to the fact that the majority of the 
prime seamen, of whom Great Britain now possessed 
large numbers, were absent on distant voyages. In 
this respect, the very increase of trade which the 



172 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Navy existed to protect militated against the power 
of the Navy to carry out its primary duty. Another 
remarkable feature of the war was the position of the 
French, who remained at peace with Britain, but, under 
treaty, supplied the Spaniards with a contingent of 
ships. It was argued that the provision of this pledged 
help did not involve a state of war, and did not even 
justify the British in capturing French ships. French 
writers complain bitterly about such captures. 

Vernon — old Grogram, from whose nickname the 
word "grog" is said to be derived — captured Porto 
Bello by a daring assault; but he failed in conjoint 
expeditions against Cartagena and Santiago de Cuba, 
mainly owing to disagreements with the military- 
commander. The one notable feat of the war was the 
voyage of Anson round the world in 1740, in the course 
of which he captured the Acapulco galleon off Manila, 
and returned with a million and a quarter of treasure. 
The exploit, in very many respects, recalls that of 
Drake. Like Drake, Anson lost all his ships but one, 
the Centurion, his flagship. Unlike Drake, however, 
who had picked a crew of gentlemen adventurers with 
him, Anson's men were the sweepings of the gaols and 
the hospitals, old, bad, and decrepit. His voyage was 
thus a great feat, showing that the spirit of seaman- 
ship was alive in the British Navy, despite the evil 
influences of Court favouritism and corruption. It 
awoke all the old terror of the English name in the 
American and Eastern possessions of Spain. 

In the year that Anson started on his voyage, the 
Emperor Charles VI. died, and the War of the Austrian 
Succession began, France supporting the claim of 
the Elector of Bavaria against Maria Theresa, and 
Frederick the Great fighting against the latter for his 



PRIDE AND A FALL 173 

own hand. The English supported the Empress with 
contingents of troops, in order to secure the Low Coun- 
tries, but issued no declaration of war against France. 
The complicated welter of alliances and enmities is, 
however, no part of our subject. It is enough to record 
that the Spaniards made an attempt to support France 
against the Empress in Italy, and that, the considera- 
tion before referred to operating, the British Navy- 
was employed in the Mediterranean to thwart them, 
and employed with success. The result was curious. 
The Spanish fleet, inferior to the British, was shut up 
for months in Toulon, still a neutral port, and was 
then escorted thence by a French squadron under 
Admiral de Court, which had orders not to fight un- 
less it was attacked. In February, 1744, an indecisive 
engagement was fought outside Toulon, France and 
Britain being still nominally at peace, though the 
French had signed a treaty binding themselves to 
declare war a few months previously. 

The action did not redound to the credit of any of 
those engaged, with the solitary exception of Captain 
Edward Hawke, destined to become famous as the 
victor of Quiberon Bay. Matthews, the British 
admiral, with twenty-nine ships-of-the-line, attacked 
the French and Spanish fleet of twenty-seven. The 
misconduct of his second in command and of most of 
his captains robbed Matthews of victory. He was 
tried and condemned by court-martial, on the curious 
ground that he had broken his own line of battle, the 
truth being that his captains had refused to follow his 
course. The second in command, who was Matthews's 
personal enemy, was also tried but acquitted, on the 
grounds that Matthews's signals were contradictory. 
Seeing that he had failed to come into action at all, 



174 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

it is plain that there was yet a long way to travel 
before we reach the spirit of Nelson's fighting instruc- 
tions: "No captain can do very wrong who lays his 
ships alongside an enemy." 

This reprehensible failure was partly redeemed, 
after the declaration of war by France, by two actions 
fought by Anson and Hawke respectively in the 
Atlantic. The latter officer won a decided victory, 
taking six ships out of a squadron of nine commanded 
by Admiral L'Entenduere, who sacrificed himself 
in order to protect his convoy of two hundred and 
fifty ships, with which he was bound for the West 
Indies. Hawke was himself too much shattered to 
attempt to capture the convoy, but he sent a fast sailing 
sloop to give warning of its approach to the admiral 
on the West Indies station, with the consequence that 
it was dispersed and the greater number of the ships 
taken. Thus the communications of the enemy were 
disturbed by sea, and the superiority of the British 
sea power asserted. To present the other side of the 
picture, the British Channel Guard foiled an attempt 
by Marshal Saxe to invade the country from Dunkirk, 
and, although the Young Pretender landed in Scotland 
in 1745. he could bring but few men with him, and 
owed such success as his adventure won to the sympathy 
with his cause which was widespread in the northern 
kingdom. Had he been accompanied by ten, or even 
five thousand French veterans, the story might have 
been differently written. If the War of the Austrian 
Succession was not very glorious to Great Britain, her 
sea power at any rate achieved the main object of its 
existence. It maintained the use of the sea routes to 
herself and denied it to her enemies. The war navies 
of France and Spain were swept from the ocean, and 



PRIDE AND A FALL 175 

their sea-borne trade was shattered. It was, however, 
due to the weakness of her enemies rather than to her 
own strength that Great Britain came through un- 
scathed. The Navy did not rise to the height of the 
expectations formed of it. Jealousies between it and 
the Army fettered its action. There was, however, a 
very significant outcome of sea power which holds a 
lesson for us to-day, and must now be mentioned. 

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which closed this war, 
settled none of the questions for which it had been 
fought. Especially, the western boundaries of the 
French and English in North America were still left 
indeterminate. The American Colonists, however, 
had taken Louisburg in the mouth of the St. Lawrence, 
and thus had got a sure lever for future pressure upon 
the French in Canada. But the English had lost 
Madras, and, in the Treaty, the American gain was 
bartered for the return of the English loss. Little as 
the Colonists liked the loss of their capture, they knew 
that they could always retake it, so long as Britain 
held command of the sea. On the other hand, the 
shock to the prestige of Dupleix in India when the 
natives saw his resounding victory rendered fruitless 
was something from which it could not recover. Such 
was the result of sea power acting on opposite sides of 
the world, but still all one. Naturally, however, there 
was discontent among the Colonists, and this is the 
first instance of a difficulty which may be expected to 
recur when those who share the fighting have no voice 
in the policy which makes war or concludes peace. 
It is a question of urgent and growing importance to 
the Ocean Empire. 

Besides the question of the North American boundary, 
that of the right of search in South American waters, 



176 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the very starting point of the war with Spain, was also 
left unsettled. It is not, therefore, surprising to learn 
that, while Europe was nominally at peace, an irregu- 
lar war continued between France and Britain in more 
remote parts of the world, or that Spain was ready to 
join, as far as her weakness would permit. Despite 
the recall of Dupleix, the struggle for primacy in India 
continued by means of alliances with native princes 
who were continually at war with one another in the 
tottering Empire of the Great Mogul. The way of 
the sea being barred to French reinforcements, it was 
a matter of course that British power should wax and 
theirs wane, though it was long yet before the struggle 
was entirely abandoned. In the West, Boscawen 
actually stopped a squadron, in May, 1755, which was 
carrying reinforcements to the garrison of Canada, 
and, in the same year. Sir Edward Hawke was sent 
to cruise between Ushant and Finisterre, with orders 
to seize any French ships, line-of -battleships, or other, 
that he might come across. The French made osten- 
tatious preparations for the invasion of this country; 
but were all the while preparing a coup in the Mediter- 
ranean. A force under the Due de Richelieu, supported 
by a fleet under La Gallissoniere, suddenly made a 
descent on Minorca, and laid siege to Port Mahon. 

This led to the fatal engagement for which Admiral 
John Byng was tried and shot. He had been hurried 
from Portsmouth on the first news of the French move 
with ten sail-of-the-line, and picked up another three 
on the way. With this force he was about equal to 
La Gallissoniere. The French were not seeking a deci- 
sive engagement, and tried to avoid close action, while 
damaging the British ships aloft as much as possible. 
Byng could not get his whole force into action. It 



PRIDE AND A FALL 177 

seems that the unfortunate man was oppressed by the 
sentence on Matthews for his action in the battle off 
Toulon, mentioned above. It will be remembered 
that he was condemned for breaking his own line of 
battle. The rearmost ships of Byng's fleet being late 
in coming into action, and two vessels, Louisa and 
Trident, owing to damage to their spars being behind 
him instead of ahead, he would not bear down alone 
and delay the French ships in order to bring them 
into action. "You see, Captain Gardiner," he said 
to his flag captain, "that the signal for the line is out, 
and that I am ahead of the ships Louisa and Trident. 
You would not have me, as Admiral of the Fleet, run 
down as if I were about to engage a single ship. It was 
Mr. Matthews's misfortune to be prejudiced by not 
carrying down his line together, which I shall endeavour 
to avoid." He avoided Mr. Matthews's "error" at 
the cost of his life. A Council of War decided not to 
fight again, but to return to Gibraltar. Port Mahon 
fell, and Byng was recalled to England, to be tried for 
his life. He was acquitted of cowardice and active 
misconduct, but was found guilty of not doing all he 
might have done to secure success. The only penalty 
decreed by the Articles of War for his offence was 
death, and, accordingly, death was the sentence. A 
particularly unscrupulous political intrigue was set on 
foot to prevent the King from exercising his prerogative 
of mercy, and B^mg was shot, less "to encourage the 
rest," as Voltaire remarked, than to gratify the spite 
of his political enemies. Nevertheless the effect of 
the execution was to give the officers of the Navy a 
better perspective of their duty, and, if hard measure 
was meted out to the man himself, it must be owned 
that, after the discreditable affair of Matthews, stem 



178 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

action was required to restore the spirit of the Navy. 
War was declared by France three days after the action 
off Minorca. 

After this inauspicious beginning, the rest of the 
war was almost wholly glorious to our arms. The year 
1757 saw the victory of Plassey, and the foundation 
of the British Empire in India. The "wonderful year," 
1759, saw the taking of Quebec, the battle of Minden, 
Boscawen's victory over De La Clue in Lagos Bay, 
and, finally, Hawke's great triumph at Quiberon. 
Clive's work in India was helped by the tenacity with 
which Admiral Pocock clung to the French squadron 
under Commodore d'Ache. Three desperate, though 
indecisive, battles were fought, and then the general 
superiority of British sea power told its tale. Despite 
the possession of the Isles of France and Bourbon, 
d'Ache could get no proper support or supplies for his 
ships, and, eventually, naval aid was withdrawn from 
the French, and the British were left to consolidate 
their position unmolested, save by such forces as the 
French had already in the Peninsula. Wolfe owed 
his success at Quebec largely to the fleet which accom- 
panied him up the St, Lawrence, and enabled him to 
surprise the enemy at the Heights of Abraham, besides 
preventing reinforcements from reaching Montcalm. 
The land advance by way of Lake Champlain failed; 
that up the St. Lawrence, assisted by the Navy, suc- 
ceeded. The capture of Canada is, perhaps, the best 
monument to the success of the peculiarly British 
strategy of the conjoint use of naval and military forces. 
On the Continent of Europe, where the French had 
been led into war with Prussia in an unwonted alliance 
with Austria, owing to the resentment of Madame de 
Pompadour at the sneers of Frederick, the arms of 



PRIDE AND A FALL 179 

that monarch were sustained in his desperate struggle 
against French, Austrians, and Russians by the sub- 
sidies which flowed from the overwhelming sea-borne 
wealth of Britain. Moreover, the strength of France 
was eventually diverted from the mid-European 
struggle to an attempt to invade this country through 
desperation at the ruin which was coming upon her. 
The two conflicts were rather parallel than identical. 
The British share in the land conflict was, once more, 
dictated by anxiety for the Low Countries. Louis 
XV., like his grandfather, was in a cleft stick. He had 
to make up his mind whether he would be a "wet-bob" 
or a "dry-bob," He elected to be the latter, and then 
changed his mind, under pressure of circumstances, 
too late. A great armament was assembled at the 
mouth of the Loire, while fleets were collected at Brest 
and Toulon, which were intended to make junction 
and convoy the armies across — fifty thousand men for 
England, twelve thousand for Scotland. It was an 
earlier example of Napoleon's plan of 1803, and a late 
copy of Santa Cruz's scheme for the Armada. 

The British seamen met the threat in the same 
manner as it was met at the later date. Hawke 
watched the squadron in Brest, Boscawen that at 
Toulon. It was not a "blockade," though it is often 
so described. The object was, not to shut the French 
in, but to bring them to action, "if, or when, they should 
come out. It was a defensive measure which had 
offence for its ultimate object. And it was combined 
with direct action which was purely offensive, having 
for its object to force the hands of the French by con- 
tinual irritation and to compel them to withdraw or 
withhold forces from the campaign against Frederick. 
The British waged a relentless war against French 



i8o SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

trade, made descents with conjoint naval and military 
forces on various points of the French coast, and, one 
by one, wrenched the colonies of France from her. 
The Toulon squadron attempted to get to sea while 
Boscawen was at Gibraltar carrying out repairs. It 
was driven into Lagos Bay and scattered or destroyed. 
Five ships alone managed to escape into Cadiz. The 
Brest fleet was ordered to put to sea and fight a fleet 
action with Hawke, in order to clear the way for the 
transports. Hawke was driven ofE his station into 
Torbay by a heavy westerly gale, which kept the French 
in port but enabled them to receive as reinforcement 
a small squadron which was returning from the West 
Indies. When the wind shifted to easterly, M. de 
Conflans, who commanded the French, put to sea and 
cruised to the southward. Hawke, released from Torbay, 
crowded all sail, and came up with him on November 
20th. A gale was again blowing from west-north-west, 
and Conflans, who was in slightly inferior force, made 
for Quiberon Bay, thinking that Hawke would not 
dare to follow him on that iron-bound lee shore. He 
mistook the mettle of the man. Hawke was a con- 
summate seaman, and he knew the coast. He ordered 
a general chase. The flying spray was seen dashing 
over the rocks, which showed black in the winter 
twilight through it. Hawke's master remonstrated 
with him on the rashness of the attempt to follow the 
French in. "You have done your duty in pointing 
out the danger," replied Hawke. "Now la}'- me along- 
side the enemy's flagship!" That could not be, for 
M. de Conflans led the flight. Hawke's van dashed in, 
hot on the track of the French rear. The thunder of 
guns mingled with the roar of the surf, and the flashes 
lit up the darkness which had by now fallen. The 



% i^'f^^i- 




pa 



3 



PRIDE AND A FALL i8i 

foam-covered rocks alone buoyed the fairway. A 
French 74, pressed by superior force, opened her lower- 
deck ports in order that she might reply more effec- 
tively to the hostile fire. The sea poured in, and she 
foundered. Two more struck their colours; several 
were wrecked. Fifteen made for the mouth of the 
Vilaine, got in over the bar, and were left there helpless 
for fifteen months. The flagship Le Roi Soleil found 
herself when morning broke in the middle of the 
British fleet. She was run ashore, where Hawke 
destroyed her. Five ships only succeeded in making 
their way to Rochefort. The Navy of Louis XV. 
was out of action for the remainder of the war. 

Such was this great victory, for boldness and skill 
perhaps greater even than Trafalgar, and matched only 
by the Nile. Henceforth Britain wrought her will on 
every sea. The threat of invasion was at an end. 
Spain joined in the war shortly afterwards, only to 
be rewarded by the loss of Havana, which was cap- 
tured by Pocock, and of the Philippine Islands. Im- 
mense sums in specie were also taken, and Spain soon 
sued for a humiliating peace. The war was ended by 
the Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on February 3, 
1763. By it, France ceded all claim to Nova Scotia 
and Canada, the Valley of the Ohio, and all her terri- 
tory on the eastern side of the Mississippi, except the 
town of New Orleans. Spain surrendered Florida 
in exchange for the return of Havana. She was 
leniently dealt with otherwise, for she recovered the 
Philippines. In the West Indies, the islands of Guade- 
loupe and Martinique were returned to France, and 
her claim to Santa Lucia was allowed, while Britain 
kept St. Vincent, Tobago, Dominica, and Grenada in 
the Lesser Antilles. The former possessions of the 



i82 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

French in India were restored to them; but the right 
to fortify or keep troops in Bengal was surrendered. 
Britain recovered Minorca. 

The losses of British trade during the Seven Years' 
War were great. The French took to privateering after 
1759, and, in one year, captured fourteen hundred 
merchantmen out of a total of about eight thousand. 
The national debt had risen to the sum of £122,000,000 
— an immense burden for that day, though one at 
which we may well look with envy now. But the new 
resources which India and the Colonies yielded amply 
compensated, and the debt was really a source of 
wealth rather than of embarrassment. It meant a 
distribution of comfort among the middle-classes, and 
a consequent plenitude of employment for those de- 
pendent upon them. The military navy of France 
lost nearly half its strength in the war, while that of 
Britain was strengthened by the capture of fine ships 
of a better model than she herself, at this time, con- 
structed. Moreover, the superiority of the British 
officers and seamen was enhanced by the policy of 
watching the enemy's ports. Facing all weathers, they 
became in an increasing degree hardy and resource- 
ful, while the French, condemned to sojourn in port, 
rapidly deteriorated in efficiency, though not in courage. 
At no time in the world's history was the maritime 
superiority of any Power so firmly established as was 
that of Britain at the close of the Seven Years' War. 
And, at the same time, the Continent was exhausted 
by the terrific struggle to subdue Frederick the Great, 
and fell into torpor, until the thunder-clap of the French 
Revolution aroused it. On this fact the foundation 
of our industrial prosperity was also laid. 

It must be remembered that sea-borne trade at this 



PRIDE AND A FALL 183 

time did not involve the free coming and going of 
merchant ships into foreign ports freely open to them, 
as we understand it nowadays, when the right is subject 
only to the payment of dues required by municipal 
law. The mercantile system prevailed almost univer- 
sally, and the privilege of entering foreign ports was 
only conceded as the outcome of negotiations between 
governments. Colonial trade, in particular, was very 
closely preserved to the Mother Country. The pro- 
ducts of the French Colonies might be conveyed only 
to France, and only in French ships. The French, 
however, being unable to carry on this trade themselves 
during the Seven Years' War, owing to the pressure 
of the British Navy, opened it to the Dutch. Great 
Britain replied with "The Rule of 1756," which is the 
basis of all our Orders in Council and Prize Court 
regulations. 

The British Government gave orders that all neutral 
ships laden with cargoes from the Colonies of the enemy 
should be captured and brought before the Prize Courts. 
. . . This was done on the principle that during war the 
commercial dealings of neutrals ought to be kept within 
their accustomed limits, and that they have no right to 
enjoy a trade which is closed to them in time of peace, 
and thus help one belligerent by incorporating their mer- 
chantmen with his, thus identifying themselves with his 
interests (G. W. T. Omond, The Law of the Sea, A. C. 
Black, Ltd., pp. 7, 8). 

In essence, this meant that French colonial trade 
went to enrich Britain, even if the Colonies did not 
themselves fall to her. The grinding power of supre- 
macy at sea is thus shown, and one of the reasons also 
why trade flourished in war-time in the case of a mari- 



i84 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

time Power like Great Britain, which, with the mastery 
of the sea, held control of the sea routes. She was, 
moreover, in a position to exact conditions favourable 
to her trade from neutrals. The Treaty with Portugal, 
negotiated by Paul Methuen in 1703, which reduced 
the duties on Portuguese wines to two-thirds in ex- 
change for the free importation of English woollen 
manufactures, and is thus, perhaps, responsible for 
half the gout in the country, is a case in point. It 
gave Great Britain a practical monopoly of the trade 
in Portugal, and sent the gold of Brazil to London by 
way of Lisbon. Politically, it made Portugal depen- 
dent for her defence on England, and made the defence 
of Portugal one of the first of British interests. Trade 
acquired as the result of general maritime superiority 
soon outbalanced all the damage done by enemy 
cruisers and privateers. 

Two years after the signature of the Treaty of Fon- 
tainebleau, the North American Colonists began their 
struggle for independence by resistance to the Stamp 
Act. It is easy to be wise after the event, and to 
condemn, as the Whigs by whom history was com- 
monly written up to the time of Macaulay, have unan- 
imously condemned, the King and his successive 
ministers for crass folly. Experiment had not yet 
shown, as it has, happily, since, that a commonwealth 
of nations, each enjoying the most complete rights of 
self-government, could yet remain a united if loosely 
compacted empire. No better system of administer- 
ing the government of Colonies had as yet been devised 
than that which Britain pursued up to 1765. The 
Colonists themselves made no move for greater liberty 
until the threat involved in the French possession of 
Canada and Louisiana and their claim to the country 



PRIDE AND A FALL 185 

west of the AUeghanies had been removed in the Seven 
Years' War. Still, sapiens qui prospicit! There was 
a lesson which had to be learned, and our statesmen 
learned it too late. The European enemies of Great 
Britain were not slow to seize the opportunity to rub 
it in. 

The fourteen years which elapsed between the Treaty 
of Fontainebleau and the adhesion of France to the 
cause of the revolted Colonists were spent by the French 
in a resolute attempt to build up their navy and to 
strengthen the family compact which united the Royal 
Houses of France and Spain. The efforts of Choiseul, 
the French Minister, were heartily backed by the 
people, who furnished the King with ships by voluntary 
subscription. A thorough scheme of training for 
French naval officers was instituted, and the science 
of naval warfare was diligently studied. Nor was the 
British Navy allowed to decay at this time, as it had 
so often been before in time of peace. A regular 
standard of naval strength was maintained: namely, 
equality to the combined navies of the House of 
Bourbon. That standard prevailed, at least nominally, 
at the outbreak of the war. Nevertheless, Great 
Britain entered upon the struggle under circumstances 
very unfavourable to her. The merchant shipping of 
the North American Colonies amounted to very nearly 
half her own, and the reservoir of trained seamen 
which she had thus possessed was now cut off from her. 
In addition, she was committed to a war far from her 
own shores, while her principal enemies at sea were 
close to them, and, in the distant sphere, had, more- 
over, a great part of the resources of the Colonies to 
rely on. The prosecution of the land war against 
the revolted Colonists demanded the presence of great 



i86 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

fleets upon their coasts to secure the communications 
of her armies. For the first time in her history she 
fought at a serious disadvantage in geographical posi- 
tion. As a further embarrassment, the Dutch, dis- 
loyal to their ancient treaties, resisted the application 
of the rule of 1756 to the point of declaring war. Ant- 
werp and the Scheldt were at the disposal of the enemy. 
And Russia, Sweden, and Denmark joined in the armed 
neutrality, which aimed at asserting the right of neutrals 
to trade with belligerents in all articles save contraband 
of war, and denied the right of blockade. Since naval 
stores then chiefly came from the Baltic, and these 
were denied to Great Britain, the armed neutrality 
scarcely differed from actual war. 

Twice over great French and Spanish fleets were 
in the Channel, while a large army of invasion lay on 
the opposite shore. Three times Gibraltar was on the 
point of starvation when it was relieved, first by 
Darby, secondly by Rodney, and lastly by Howe. 
Two British armies were compelled to lay down their 
arms in America, chiefly owing to the local and tem- 
porary superiority of the enemy at sea. Yet, with it 
all, when peace came in 1783, the sea power of Britain 
was substantially tmshaken. The American Colonies 
were gone, and a couple of West Indian islands, and 
Minorca. But all except the flrst could be recovered, 
provided that the real command of the sea were main- 
tained, and that was still not in doubt. The sea-sense 
of the race was never better exemplified than in this 
struggle, which ought to have seen the end of Britain's 
greatness. The Royal Navy of France was never so 
formidable. But it completely failed against the 
inherited instinct which led men like Hood, Kempen- 
feldt, and Rodney to do the right thing, even when in 



PRIDE AND A FALL 187 

inferior force. Even in the East Indies, where Hughes, 
as a commander, was plainly overmatched by the 
real genius of the Bailli de Suffren, the latter never 
beat him decisively, and Britain retained her position, 
despite the struggle which she was forced to carry on 
at the same time against the formidable power of 
Mysore, under Hyder AH. The French Navy, as a 
military implement, was in a high state of perfection, 
and, if the principles of sea-fighting were the same as 
those of land warfare, might have overmatched its 
opponent. But it lacked the true instinct for the sea; 
it was not backed by a strong maritime system, or a 
people whose destiny really lay upon the water. It 
failed to seize its opportunities, and, therefore, it failed 
to inflict any permanent injury on its great rival. This 
was seen plainly enough when the .issue was next fought 
out, for, by then, the Revolution had shattered the old 
Royal Navy of France, and revolutionary ardour could 
not replace discipline at sea as it did on shore. 

The operations in the West Indies, which form the 
main naval interest in the War of American Indepen- 
dence, are anything but easy to follow. Hood and 
Byron, d'Estaing and de Grasse checked and counter- 
checked each other by strategic moves which rarely 
resulted in actual, and never in decisive, action. It is 
unnecessary to follow these in detail. So long as the 
land war on the American continent continued, British 
naval operations were hampered by the necessity of sup- 
porting the land forces and maintaining the communi- 
cations of the different detachments with one another. 
But after the surrender of Cornwallis in Yorktown, 
the cause of the United States was won, and the struggle 
was between Great Britain on the one hand and the 
allied Bourbon Powers on the other. The capture of 



i88 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

"sugar islands"; the re-establishment of France and 
Spain in their predominating position in the West 
Indies became the objective. De Grasse left the 
Chesapeake to capture St. Kitts, followed by Hood with 
inferior force. Rodney was expected from England 
with reinforcements, and de Guichen from France. 
Rodney duly arrived; but de Guichen was brought 
to action by Kempenfeldt ofi Brest, and his fleet and 
convoy were beaten and dispersed. This was the 
turning point. Hood foiled de Grasse by a brilliant 
stroke of strategy, and, although he could not prevent 
the capture of St. Kitts, he joined Rodney with his 
fleet intact, and the combined force became superior 
to that under de Grasse. Nevertheless, the latter 
proceeded with his preparations for the reduction of 
Jamaica, collecting a great convoy with twenty thou- 
sand troops. The expected Spanish reinforcements, 
however, did not arrive, and, on April 12, 1782, de 
Grasse was brought to action off The Saints by Rodney, 
and defeated, with the loss of five ships captured, 
including his own flagship, the Ville de Paris, the gift 
of the people of the French capital. Peace was signed 
in the following January, and it left Great Britain still 
supreme at sea. She lost a couple of West Indian 
islands and Minorca. Spain regained Florida; but 
this was of more consequence to the United States 
than to Britain. Gibraltar was saved, and, in the East 
Indies, her position was untouched. 

The British Government of the day is censured by 
Mahan for not concentrating its force on the decisive 
point, namely, off the enemy's ports. The criticism 
is, in the abstract, justified. But it omits to take 
account of the fact that, before the intervention of 
France and Spain — an intervention, however, which 



PRIDE AND A FALL 189 

was admittedly likely — Great Britain was committed 
to a struggle with the Colonists which demanded the 
support of a large fleet on the scene of action. Naval 
co-operation on the further side of the Atlantic was 
essential, and, indeed, the Colonies were mainly lost, 
because, in one or two instances, it failed to be effective. 
The division of the total naval strength of Britain was, 
therefore, inevitable. Subject to this limitation, the 
expedient of watching the enemy's ports was resorted 
to as far as possible, and, indeed, with such success 
that one-half of the French expedition detailed for the 
assistance of the Americans was locked up in Brest till 
the end of the war. This division of force compelled 
the abandonment of the Mediterranean. Port Mahon, 
left to itself, necessarily fell. But its voluntary 
abandonment would have relieved the British of little 
of their embarrassment. The obligation to relieve 
Gibraltar would have remained. The additional troops 
would have been useless for the defence, and would 
only have meant so many more mouths to feed. Again, 
it was imperative to maintain local naval forces in 
the East Indies. It is fairer to say that Great Britain, 
thrown by faulty policy into a false strategical position, 
held on tenaciously to all essential points, and that 
her unshaken grip upon the sea routes brought her 
safely through, despite the numerical inferiority to 
which she was reduced in almost every theatre of war. 
The disadvantage of the strategical defensive forced 
upon us was corrected by a tactical offensive whenever 
possible. Keppel attacked the French fleet off Ushant 
at the very beginning of the war. The action failed 
of decisive result, owing to the misconduct of his cap- 
tains, or some of them. Rodney twice attacked the 
Spaniards, in one instance under conditions which 



190 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

recall Quiberon Bay, and, on both occasions, inflicted 
a heavy defeat upon them. The victory of Kempen- 
feldt, one of our very great seamen, whose premature 
fate in the Royal George is better known than his meri- 
torious services at sea, over de Guichen off Brest has 
already been mentioned. Only two ships-of-the-line 
out of seventeen and five merchantmen out of a hun- 
dred and fifty reached the West Indies. The distant 
issue was decided in European waters — a telling instance 
of the working of sea power. 

Great Britain emerged from a contest in which the 
whole world was engaged, actively or passively, against 
her, chastened but not killed. Everything which she 
had lost, save only the North American Colonies, was 
recoverable, as the not distant future was to show. 
The war of 1778-83 was, of course, one of the most 
momentous for the future of mankind that has ever 
been fought. The thirteen colonies, now become 
independent were freed from the restrictions of the 
Colonial system. The enormous expansion which the 
next hundred years were to witness in the United States 
had a most powerful influence on the freedom of trade 
and freedom of the seas which it was the work of Brit- 
ain chiefly to foster after 1815. Nor is that all. By 
the independence of the United States, the hegemony 
of the New World passed to a nation speaking the 
English tongue and imbued with the ideals of Anglo- 
Saxon culture, freedom, and law. The pride of Great 
Britain was rudely humbled; but the lesson taught her 
by the successful revolt of her Colonists bore fruit. 
And its fruit is nothing less than the Ocean Empire of 
which she is now the head — not the mistress, but 
prima inter pares. 



CHAPTER IX 

SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 

In supporting the revolted Colonists, the House of 
Bourbon fought for their own hand, and sealed their 
own doom. The young and brilliant Lafayette, who, 
at the age of twenty, placed his sword at the service of 
the Americans, lived to propose to the National As- 
sembly a Declaration of the Rights of Man founded 
upon the Declaration of Independence, and to com- 
mand the National Guard in the Revolution of 1830. 
Great Britain was a reluctant opponent of the Revolu- 
tion, with the principles, but not the excesses, of which 
a large number of British people were in sympathy. 
But when the revolutionists offered assistance to any 
nation desirous of freeing itself from monarchial rule, 
and proceeded to fit the Cap of Liberty on to the re- 
luctant heads of the Dutch, then the old concern for 
the Low Countries and the mouths of the Scheldt 
was reawakened. The murder of Louis XVI. and Marie 
Antoinette perhaps shocked the Court more than the 
people, though the godlessness and blasphemy of the 
Jacobins roused a sense of horror in the masses. The 
British people had liberty, but liberty of their own 
brand. They were not prepared to exchange it for 
that of revolutionary France, So Britain, the first 
Sea Power and the representative of constitutional 

191 



192 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

freedom, made common cause with Hapsburgs and 
HohenzoUerns. War was declared in 1793; the sword 
of Britain was not sheathed again, save for two short 
intervals, till Waterloo delivered "the Spoiler" into 
her hands in 18 15. 

The war divides itself naturally into three parts. 
The first, which may be called the Revolutionary period, 
is that in which Napoleon established and consolidated 
his power in France and on the Continent. This 
lasted from 1793 to the Peace of Amiens in 1801. 
The second period is that of the duel between France 
and Great Britain, from 1803 to the victory of Trafal- 
gar, on October 21, 1805. The third, from Trafalgar 
to Waterloo, is the period which covers the military 
effort of Great Britain in the Peninsula and Flanders, 
and the economic' struggle consequent on the establish- 
ment of Napoleon's "Continental System." A direct 
consequence of this was the War of 18 12 with the 
United States. Many volumes have been written 
concerning this titanic period in the world's history, 
and to follow its infinite ramifications in a chapter 
woiild be an impossible task. No more can be at- 
tempted than to indicate the working of sea power and 
to show its decisive influence on the great conflict, 
exercised often most strongly when defeat seemed 
most certain. Napoleon, the soldier, had command 
of the whole resources of France. It has been said of 
him, with truth, that he lacked "/e sentiment exact des 
difficuUes de la marine." This was shown most clearly 
in the period between 1803 and 1805, after which he 
abandoned his hopes of maritime supremacy, and 
devoted himself to the effort to "make the land con- 
quer the sea." In that he failed utterly, as every other 
conqueror has failed; and he not only failed but he 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 193 

was drawn into false strategical moves by land which 
eventually sapped the strength of France and caused 
his own downfall. Two names stand out predominantly 
during this period: those of Nelson and Napoleon. 
The record of the sailor is emblazoned with three great 
fights, in the third of which he fell: the Nile, Copen- 
hagen, and Trafalgar. On the colours of the soldier 
shine the names of Rivoli, Lodi, Areola, Marengo, 
Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Ulm, Wagram, to name 
only the most famous of his triumphs. But each of 
Nelson's battles was a deadly thrust, involving the 
failure of one of Napoleon's grandiose plans. The 
soldier's triumphs, despite the military glory ensuing, 
were but ropes of sand. 

In the first period of the war, the tasks which the 
Navy of Great Britain had to perform were, briefly, 
as follows: To protect the country from invasion, 
always, and necessarily, the first preoccupation. This 
involved, not only the time-honoured watch on the 
French ports, especially Brest and Toulon, but also 
the no less customary measures to render a threat from 
the Low Countries harmless. We had the Dutch as 
allies at the beginning of the war. But the French 
overran the Austrian Netherlands, defeated a British 
army which was laying siege to Dunkirk, and overthrew 
the House of Orange, which was favourable to Britain. 
Thus the Dutch were thrown into the arms of the Revo- 
lution, and, without much stomach for it, joined the 
ranks of our enemies. The Dutch fleet was immedi- 
ately blockaded in the Texel by Admiral Duncan, who 
brought it to action and completely defeated it, with 
the loss of nine ships-of-the-line out of sixteen, on 
October 11, 1797. An invading force intended for 
Ireland lay behind the shelter of the Dutch warships. 



194 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

But, after the disaster of Camperdown, the project was 
abandoned. Hoche's unsuccessful attempt had occurred 
the year before, and Humbert's followed the year after. 
The latter succeeded in landing a small body of troops, 
which was quickly forced to surrender. An attempt 
to send reinforcements to Humbert failed ignomini- 
ously, the flagship, Hoche, and three frigates being 
taken, and Wolfe Tone, the leader of the disaffected 
Irish, taken with them. The direct threat to the se- 
curity of the British islands was thus, for the time be- 
ing, brought to an end before the close of the century. 
The French continued to control the Dutch ports 
throughout the war. But Dutch sea power rose no 
more after Camperdown. The oversea possessions of 
Holland fell one by one into the hands of the British, 
though most of them were restored at the end of the 
war, the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, and Demerara 
being the most important of those retained. 

In the conditions under which the war opened, 
assistance to the elements in France which resisted or 
revolted against the Revolution was obviously indicated 
as the second duty of the possessors of sea power. Such 
attempts were duly made, in La Vendel, in Provence, 
and in the West Indies, where Hayti, in particular, 
under the leadership of the negro, Toussaint L'Ouver- 
ture, was in revolt. Little came of these endeavours, 
however, and the only one possessing any interest is 
the occupation of Toulon, where the Mediterranean 
fleet, under Lord Hood, supported the inhabitants who 
had raised the White Flag of the Bourbons. The shore 
works were seized and manned ; but the counter-revolu- 
tion failed at Marseilles and Lyons, and Toulon was 
besieged by the Revolutionary forces, whose artillery 
was directed by Napoleon Bonaparte, then a captain. 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 195 

The works proved untenable, and Hood retired, burn- 
ing some and taking others of the French warships in 
the port. Thus early the future Emperor came into 
contact with sea power, and his first encounter ended 
favourably for him. 

If, however, he imbibed any hopes from this inci- 
dent in his later reflections, knowledge of the fate of 
France at this time should have checked them. The 
"stranglehold" of the British Navy, combined with 
the effects of internal disorder, was already telling. 
The wheat cargoes from Sicily and the Barbary States 
were cut off. The French were already in need of 
bread. It was to secure the safe arrival of a great con- 
voy from America that the Admiral commanding at 
Brest, Villaret-Joyeuse, was ordered to sea, and thus 
the first great naval engagement of the war was brought 
on, namely, the battle which is known as The Glorioul 
First of June. The fleets were in contact four days 
before the issue was finally joined, and each suffered 
some losses in the earlier encounters. Those of the 
French were made good by the joining of a detached 
squadron under Nielly. On the morning of the First, 
Howe, the British commander, had twenty-five of the 
line against twenty-six French. Four prizes were 
taken and several more ships were disabled. But 
Howe's fleet was too severely damaged to renew the 
action, and Villaret-Joyeuse drew off the rest of his 
fleet to Brest, where he met the convoy which his action 
had saved. But the battle proved the superiority of 
the British at sea. The escape of the convoy was, more 
or less, a fluke, and the grip of superior sea power was 
confirmed, not weakened, by the event. Our own com- 
munications, both with the Mediterranean and America, 
were better assured after the defeat of Villaret-Joyeuse. 



1967 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

The consequence is clearly seen in the inability of 
the French to re-equip their fleet. Naval stores from the 
Baltic could not be obtained. The British also com- 
manded the resources of the Mediterranean. When 
the French commander put to sea for a winter cruise 
early in 1795, he had to take with him ships whose 
masts and spars had been wounded in the First of June, 
there being no material to replace them. The cruise 
cost the French five ships-of-the-line, though they never 
fell in with the British fleet. Nevertheless, owing to 
the policy of the Admiralty and of Lord Bridport, 
whohad succeeded Howe in command of the Channel 
Fleet, which kept the British force in the harbours 
of the South Coast and left the French unwatched, a 
detachment was able to sHp through to Toulon, which, 
for the time being, left the British fleet under Hotham 
in a position of inferiority. A small action off *the He 
Croix, in which Bridport took three French ships and 
let nine escape him, was the only incident worth noting 
in the Atlantic during the year 1795. 

In the West Indies, meanwhile, islands had been 
changing and re-changing hands, with the result that, 
for all essential purposes, the two sides were practically 
as they were at the beginning of the war, the French 
retaining Martinique and Guadeloupe, strategically the 
most important. The position had greatly changed 
to the disadvantage of Great Britain, since the United 
States became independent and were, therefore, no 
longer subject to her Colonial system. The French 
islands became not only nests of privateers, as they 
had always been, but great centres of trade, to which 
American produce was brought for shipment to France 
under convoy. The trade, being carried on in a num- 
ber of small vessels, was not easily stopped. It was 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 197 

not till after Trafalgar, when the main fleets of France 
no longer kept the sea, that the islands fell into British 
hands and this source of support for the French was put 
an end to. 

The first act of the great sea drama, however, was 
played out, for the most part, in the Mediterranean. 
Great Britain, as usual, was supporting the Land Pow- 
ers with subsidies and the aid of her fleet wherever diffi- 
culties could be raised for the French on or in proximity 
to blue water. We have seen how she supported 
the insurrectionary party of Toulon. Hood retired 
from there to the Salins d'Hyeres, where he kept watch 
on the French fleet and did his best to harry the enemy's 
communications with Italy and the Barbary States, 
whence the South of France was mainly supplied with 
corn, A base, however, was needed. Gibraltar was 
too far off, and Port Mahon had been lost in the last 
war. The disaffection of the Corsicans with French 
rule offered the opportunity, and the- British seized 
San Fiorenzo, Bastia, and Calvi. Nelson's name first 
becomes prominent in these operations. So based, the 
British were in a position to interfere with the com- 
munications of the French army in Italy along the 
Corniche Road, and to influence the small States of 
Italy, Naples, Genoa, and the rest in favour of Austria 
and the Alliance. The French were once more aiming 
at the control of the Middle Danube through Italy, for 
which purpose they required secure communications 
by sea. The joint enterprise, however, did not prosper, 
partly owing to the supineness of the Austrian generals, 
and partly to the brilliant campaign of Napoleon, who 
entered Northern Italy by way of the Alps. Partly, 
also, it must be owned, owing to the incapacity of 
Hotham, who detached Nelson to the aid of the Aus- 



198 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

trians, but with insufficient force. Napoleon compelled 
the submission of Genoa, Parma, Tuscany, Naples, and 
the Papal States. It looked as if the Land had won the 
first round in the contest for mastery with the Sea. 

Spain joined the French in 1796, with the result that 
the British Government ordered the evacuation of 
Corsica and Elba, which had been seized later, and the 
British fleet evacuated the Mediterranean, a course 
imposed on it by the disobedience to orders of Admiral 
Mann, who, on being driven from before Cadiz by the 
junction of the Spanish fleet with a French squadron 
which he was watching in that port, sailed for home 
instead of joining Sir John Jervis, who was now com- 
mander-in-chief. The disappearance of the British 
flag, however, was not for long, for on the 14th of the 
following February Jervis won the great victory of St. 
Vincent. Nelson's share in the triumph is well-known. 
He there showed for the first time in a fleet action that 
swift tactical insight in which he excelled all other 
naval commanders of his own, or perhaps of any other 
time. His action in leaving the line without orders 
— the very fault for which Matthews had been con- 
demned — was commented upon by Calder on board the 
flagship afterwards. "He certainly disobeyed orders, " 
Jervis replied, "and if ever you are guilty of a like dis- 
obedience, I will forgive you, too. " No one less likely 
than Calder to sin by too great initiative could possibly 
be imagined. The battle of St. Vincent showed the 
worthlessness of the Spanish navy, of which, however, 
Nelson was fully convinced beforehand. When he 
heard that the King of Spain had given five fine three- 
deckers to the French, "Not with their crews, I presume, 
for that would be the surest way to lose them again, " 
was his pungent comment. 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE I99 

In the next year Nelson was back again in the Medi- 
teiranean. Bonaparte was evidently planning some 
great enterprise, the nature of which was carefully con- 
cealed, even from his own people. All the ^^g^s pom ed 
to an attempt to invade England or Ireland. But the 
British Government were not wholly misled, and, when 
the preparations could no longer be concealed, St. Vin- 
cent was ordered to send ten of the line, unto the 
officer whom he should select, to observe and follow 
the movements of the expedition. He selected Nelson, 
who had just rejoined his fleet after recovery from the 
wound by which he lost his arm at the unsuccessful 
attempt on Vera Cruz. Napoleon seized Malta and 
then sailed for Egypt, where he landed with thirty 
thousand men. The French were aheady m possession 
of Corfu, Cerigo, and Cephalonia, which they had 
acquired at the expense of Venice by the Treaty of 
Campo Formio. The Porte, for the present, made no 
attempt to defend its possession of Egypt, feanng the 
sea power of France, which then seemed predominant 
in the Mediterranean. Nelson chased to Alexandria, 
but got there before the French. In a fever of anxiety 
he returned to Sicily, but could get no information of 
their whereabouts. Still convinced in his own mmd 
that their destination was Egypt, he started off^ agam, 
and discovered the French at anchor in Aboukir Bay. 
Nelson's fleet now consisted of thirteen ships, twelve of 
the line, and one of fifty guns, while the French had 
the same number under Admiral Brueys, with his flag 
in UOrienL Two of Nelson's ships had, however, been 
away reconnoitring, thanks to his lack of frigates and 
were late in getting into action. A third, the Culloden, 
under Troubridge, ran aground. The attack, therefore, 
opened with ten ships against the thirteen of the enemy. 



200 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

The French, however, were at anchor, and so badly 
were they placed that they were open to attack on 
both sides at once. Nelson observed that they lay at a 
single anchor, and his acute mind at once seized upon 
the opportunity offered. "Where there is room for a 
Frenchman to swing, " he exclaimed, "there is room for 
an Englishman to anchor, " and he ordered, or allowed, 
Foley, in the Goliath, to lead into action on the inshore 
side. The British, in turn, anchored by the stern oppo- 
site the French van, and, having disposed of their 
immediate opponents, passed on to the centre and rear. 
The action raged furiously all night, the damage done 
being great on both sides, but far greater on that of the 
French. Towards midnight the flagship, UOrient, 
blew up with a fearful explosion, the awe of which 
caused a suspension of the firing for nearly ten minutes. 
In the end, the French fleet was destroyed more thor- 
oughly than any fleet in history has been before or since, 
with the single exception of the Russian at Tsu-shima. 
Two ships only, Genereux and Guillaume Tell, escaped, 
and both were captured in the following year. 

The sea communications of Napoleon's army were 
thus destroyed. Napoleon himself met the disaster 
with characteristic spirit. "Seas which we do not 
command," he said, "separate us from home; but no 
seas divide us from Africa and Asia. We will found 
here an Empire." Events proved him wrong. Sea 
power commanded the only practicable route to Asia. 
The Porte, encouraged by the destruction of the French 
fleet, determined upon resistance. Following the old 
historic road of invasion. Napoleon reached Acre. 
There the British met him once more, in the shape of the 
seamen from Sir Sidney Smith's squadron. He could 
not take the place, with sea power at its back. Slaugh- 




S pi 



o -e 



pq J 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 201 

tering his prisoners and poisoning his own wounded, 
he fell back to Egypt. Next year, in a daring manner, 
he made his escape to France. But the misfortunes of 
the army he left behind him were not at an end. A 
British expedition under Sir Ralph Abercrombie landed 
at Aboukir, defeated the French under General Menou, 
and forced a capitulation, under the terms of which 
the French army was allowed to re-embark for France. 
Malta was blockaded and fell on September 5, 1800. 

Sea power had won the second round handsomely. 
A French writer, Jurien de la Graviere, says of the 
Battle of the Nile: 

Our navy never recovered from this terrible blow to its 
consideration and its power. This was the combat which 
for two years delivered the Mediterranean to the English 
and called thither the squadrons of Russia; which shut up 
our army in the midst of a rebellious population, and decided 
the Porte to declare against us ; which put India out of the 
reach of our enterprise, and brought France within a hair's 
breadth of her ruin ; for it rekindled the scarcely extinct war 
with Austria, and brought Suvarof and the Austro-Russians 
to our very frontiers. 

The trade of Britain advanced by leaps and bounds. 
The total of exports and imports, which had been 
£44,500,000 in 1792, rose to £73,000,000 in 1800. 
Such a result of seven years of war might well be 
described by Pitt as " a spectacle at once paradoxical, 
inexplicable, and astonishing." By her command of 
the sea. Great Britain centred the trade, finance, and 
industry of the world upon her own shores. The seas 
were free to her alone, and to such neutrals as she chose 
to extend the freedom. The wealth of the tropical 



202 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

world and the great granaries from which the nations 
drew their supplies were hers also. 

The military genius of Napoleon and the selfishness 
and short-sightedness of the monarchs of Central and 
Eastern Europe were, however, to postpone the golden 
dreams of a victorious peace for many years yet. The 
great captain, returned from Egypt, restored the affairs 
of France in the campaign of Marengo. The Northern 
States became restive under the British restrictions on 
trade. Prussia, as usual, pursued a selfish, treacherous, 
though short-sighted, policy. The half-mad Tsar, 
Paul, incensed by what he considered to be the faith- 
lessness of Austria, listened to the machinations of 
Napoleon. The consequence was that Austria was 
forced to accept the disastrous Treaty of Luneville, and 
that a fresh armed neutrality was formed in Northern 
Europe, by means of which Napoleon hoped to dispute 
once more the command of the sea with the help of 
the united navies of Russia, Denmark, and Sweden. 
Nelson was once more the stumbling-block in his path. 
There are few incidents in the history of their country 
on which the British people look back with more sincere 
regret than the Battle of Copenhagen. But regret 
springs solely from the sentiments of friendship and 
admiration they feel for the gallant Danes and from no 
doubts as to the justice or expediency of the course taken 
by the British Government. If Europe was to be saved 
from the threatened dominion of Napoleon, the smaller 
maritime States had to be taken out of his hand. How- 
ever justified intrinsically the complaints of the Danes 
might have been, the greater issues at stake demanded 
that they should be laid on one side, forcibly if need 
be. 

Copenhagen was considered by Nelson to be the 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 203 

greatest feat of his life, and, if we regard not only the 
skill and boldness of the attack, but also the generous 
and adroit diplomacy with which he won peace out of 
strife, there is little reason to dispute his conclusion. 
The incidents of the battle are so well known that they 
need no re-telling. The Danes, to this day, claim that 
they repulsed the attack, and we may be content 
to leave it at that, for we grudge such brave foemen 
nothing which may cause their honour to shine more 
brightly. The glory of the furious onslaught on ships 
and batteries is sufficient for our arms. Moreover, 
the result of the battle, and of the ensuing death of Tsar 
Paul, was to break up the northern coalition. Our 
object was attained. The danger passed away. If the 
Continent lay at Napoleon's feet, and seemed destined 
to be the appanage of the Imperial Crown he was now 
about to assume, the dominion of the seas and the tri- 
bute of the world beyond was now confirmed to Great 
Britain. So affairs stood when the short and troubled 
Peace of Amiens closed for a period the doors of the 
Temple of Janus. 

That short peace was broken on May 16, 180 1, 
when Great Britain declared war in consequence of the 
dispute about Malta. At once began that "sustained 
watch," of which Mahan speaks in his most famous 
passage. On the 17th, Cornwallis left Plymouth with 
ten sail-of-the-line to resume the watch over Brest ; on 
the 1 8th, Nelson hoisted his flag in the Victory, and 
sailed to take command of the Mediterranean fleet. 

Napoleon came to the water's edge wherever it was 
possible to him. He occupied Hanover, and also Cux- 
haven on the Elbe. Great Britain replied by blockad- 
ing the mouths of that river. If the ports of the 
Continent, so far as the First Consul controlled them, 



204 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

were closed to British trade, Great Britain replied 
by re-imposing in its most rigorous form the Order of 
1756. As yet no one could foresee the end. The 
Continent remained at peace. Napoleon himself be- 
lieved Great Britain to be incapable of waging war single- 
handed against him. Although the outbreak of war 
had come sooner than he desired, and before he had had 
time to rehabilitate his navy, yet the golden opportunity 
presented itself to crush his most relentless enemy. 
Audacious schemes formed themselves in his brain; 
yet not more audacious than the invasion of Egypt. 
Could he command the Channel for twenty-four hours, 
the hundred and thirty thousand men he had assembled 
at Boulogne, Ambleteuse, Wimereux, and Etaples and 
trained with the minutest care might embark in their 
thousand fiat-bottomed boats — and then, Plus d'Angle- 
terre! To bring about the desired state of affairs, he 
made elaborate preparations for a renewed expedition to 
the East. Latouche Treville, at that time in command 
of the Toulon fleet, was to feint to the eastward and then 
slip out through the Straits. Ganteaume, with twenty 
ships and five and twenty thousand troops, was to pre- 
pare ostentatiously for an attempt on Ireland, in order 
to keep Comwallis close up to Brest. The Rochefort 
squadron was to join Latouche Treville off Cadiz, and 
the combined fleet of sixteen of the line was to bear 
up for the Channel. This plan was afterwards modi- 
fied, owing to the death of Latouche Treville and the 
succession of Villeneuve, whom Napoleon, with reason, 
distrusted, to the command. 

British seamen never had a fear that the plan would 
succeed, whatever apprehensions may have been excited 
among the populace ashore. "As to the possibility of 
the enemy being able to pass through our blockading and 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 205 

protecting squadron, with all the secrecy and dexterity, 
and by those hidden means which some worthy people 
expect," said Pellew, afterwards Lord Exmouth, "I 
really, from anything I have seen in the course of my 
professional experience, am not much disposed to con- 
cur in it." The squadrons of Britain took the old 
central position, watching closely every port where 
the enemy had a detachment of his force : Brest, Roche- 
fort, and Toulon at first, and, when Spain joined France 
in 1804, Ferrol and Cadiz as well. Should any of the 
French get to sea, then the squadron watching the port 
from which they emerged fell back on the next on the 
way to Brest, or, if necessary, on the squadron watching 
Brest itself. Thus, whatever concentration Napoleon 
might achieve, his fleets must always be confronted with 
an equal concentration of the British. Moreover, there 
was kept a fleet in the North Sea, watching the Dutch 
and the Flemish ports, a squadron under Lord Keith in 
the Downs, and a reserve of five ships, fully manned, at 
Spithead. Blow east, blow west, a British fleet could 
get at the enemy and delay his plans until the larger 
detachments could arrive. The hardships and trials of 
two years' watch, keeping the sea in all weathers, in 
accordance with the ideas of tough old St. Vincent, were 
enormous. "Admirals need not be made of iron, " said 
CoUingwood. But the fleets of Britain were never more 
perfectly manned than by the toughened and experi- 
enced seamen of this time. The French, for the most 
part confined to port, steadily deteriorated. Moreover, 
while both fleets were inactive, so far as fighting was 
concerned, all the advantages of command of the sea 
flowed to Britain. If the French battle fleets could not 
get out without fighting, neither could traders get in. 
France was cut off from the world across the seas. 



206 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Even her coasters enjoyed no immunity. The world 
was behind Britain. 

So complete was the confidence of the British Govern- 
ment in their command of the sea that they did not hesi- 
tate to send a military expedition to the Mediterranean 
behind the watching squadrons, to join the Russians 
in an attempt to drive the French from Southern Italy. 
It has even been asserted that this expedition, rather 
than the threat of invasion, prompted the elaborate 
strategical distribution of their squadrons. It was cer- 
tainly an essential part of the gigantic European com- 
bination which Pitt designed and supported with money. 
Its departure almost coincided with Villeneuve's 
evasion of Nelson and voyage to the West Indies; its 
safe arrival in Sicily even more closely coincided with 
his return, and with the abandonment of Napoleon's 
plan of invasion in favour of an attack on Austria. 
Sea power in. this way made itself felt on Continental 
politics, and a small body of British troops, disposed 
in the right place through its agency, once more exer- 
cised an influence altogether out of proportion to their 
numbers. 

The culminating point of the great battle of wits was 
reached early in 1805, when Napoleon ordered Missiessy, 
with five sail-of-the-line from Rochefort, and Villeneuve, 
with ten from Toulon, to rendezvous in the West Indies, 
in the hope of drawing after them such a British force 
that Ganteaume might break the blockade off Brest. 
Missiessy duly got away, followed by Cochrane and six 
of the line. But Villeneuve failed owing to boisterous 
weather, after having thrown Nelson, whose mind 
was obsessed with the vision of a renewed attack on 
Egypt, off the scent. The Emperor then modified his 
plan, and, in March, ordered a concentration of the 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 207 

fleets of Ganteaume, Villeneuve, and Missiessy at 
Martinique. Ganteaume, Villeneuve, and Missiessy 
sailed in the following month, just as Missiessy, having 
waited in vain, started homewards. Nelson, at first 
deceived once more, got positive news that Villeneuve 
had passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and at once made 
preparation to fall back on Cornwallis, in pursuance of 
the general plan of campaign. But, receiving authori- 
tative news that his enemy had been seen heading 
across the Atlantic, he immediately set out in pursuit, 
though the latter had thirty days' start of him. After 
a fruitless search among the islands, he learned that his 
opponent had sailed for Europe on June 9th, On 
receiving this news three days later, he at once sent off 
Captain Bettesworth in the brig Curieux to convey tid- 
ings to England, ordering him to keep a certain course 
which his instinct told him would bring him within 
sight of Villeneuve. He himself set out for the Straits 
on June 13th, and he actually arrived in European 
waters before the French squadron. 

Bettesworth reached Plymouth on July 7th, and, by 
the nth, the orders issued by Lord Barham, the wonder- 
ful veteran of eighty who was now First Lord of the 
Admiralty, had reached Cornwallis. The blockade 
of Rochefort was raised, and the five ships composing 
the squadron were sent to join Calder off Ferrol. The 
latter, now with fifteen ships under his command, was 
ordered to cruise one hundred miles west of Finisterre 
to intercept Villeneuve. The fleets met on the after- 
noon of July 22nd, and Calder captured two Spanish 
ships-of-the-line, but did not press home his advantage, 
for which fault he was tried by court-martial, and sen- 
tenced to be severely reprimanded for the same fault 
as that for which Byng was shot. But the court-martial 



208 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

did not take place until Trafalgar had relieved the 
country from all anxiety. The check received, and the 
evidence that the British were ready for any emergency, 
were, however, sufficient to cause Villeneuve, never very 
firm of purpose, to abandon the intention of joining 
Ganteaume, and to drive him into Ferrol. He oscillated 
between that port and Cadiz, until Napoleon's angry 
order, and the news that Rosily was on his way to super- 
sede him, drove him out to meet disaster on October 
2 1st at Trafalgar. Napoleon recognised that the game 
was up, and issued the orders which led to Ulm and 
Austerlitz. 

The story of Trafalgar, so often told, need not be 
repeated here. Victory and a glorious death were the 
rewards which God gave to Nelson for a life devoted to 
duty and the service of his country. Had he not fought 
and fallen, the chaplet of immortal fame with which he 
is crowned in the eyes of his countrymen might never 
have been his. The human frailty which does but 
throw his glory into brighter relief might, when the 
stimulus of action had gone, have prevailed to bring 
his life to a sordid close. He passed from life to become 
the pattern and inspiration of every British boy who 
has in his veins the sea spirit by which Britain lives. 
The cockpit of the Victory became the holiest shrine of 
our race. But, great as were, materially and spiritually, 
the fruits of Trafalgar, every serious student of naval 
history now realises that the Great Deliverance was 
wrought before the guns spoke. And the fame of Nel- 
son should not be allowed to eclipse, though it rightly 
overshadows, the merit of others who shared that weary 
and tenacious watch from 1803 to 1805, Comwallis, 
CoUingwood, Cochrane, Calder, and Pellew all deserve 
their share, nor must the skill and energy with which 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 209 

Lord Barham met the crisis be left out of the account. 
Blunders there were inevitably, and an occasional fail- 
ure, as in Calder's case, to make the most of opportunity. 
But the Trafalgar campaign, to include the whole period 
in that convenient description, shows that the whole 
Navy was permeated by a correct understanding of 
strategical conditions. The seamen never lost their 
grip of the essential point that the main force of the 
enemy was their true objective, and that, whatever 
combinations he might make, it was their business to 
meet him with superior force at the decisive point. 
All the dispositions of the Admiralty and the Admirals 
were directed towards that end, and, though, counting 
by numbers, the end was not attained, numbers were by 
no means all that mattered. Napoleon himself did not 
regard the French as equal to the British, ship for 
ship, and his admirals showed again and again that 
they were of his opinion. The Spanish were greatly 
inferior to the French: so greatly that the Emperor, 
in making his calculations, invariably reckoned two 
Spaniards as one French. 

The oft-quoted "Nelson touch" had for its purpose 
no more than the common aim of all commanders to 
isolate a portion of the enemy's fleet so that it could 
be dealt with before the rest could come to its assistance. 
This result was generally achieved by manoeuvring for 
the weather gage, which, if secured, gave choice of the 
point of attack. But so much time was frequently lost 
in these manoeuvres that the longest day did not suffice 
for a decisive action. Where Nelson improved upon 
the tactics of his predecessors was in making his order 
of sailing his order of battle. The equinox was well 
past ; light airs prevailed. If he had first waited to form 
the line when he sighted the enemy at daybreak, Tra- 
14 



210 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

falgar might have proved one of the ordinary in- 
decisive battles. But Nelson had it firmly in his mind 
that what his country required was not an ordinary 
battle, with four or five of the enemy taken, but the com- 
plete annihilation of the combined fleet as a fighting 
force. It was therefore his plan to go down to the 
enemy in the ordinary cruising formation of double 
column of line ahead, to break their formation in two 
places, to leave Collingwood to deal with their rear, 
thus isolated, while he held his own division free to 
manoeuvre against any attempt of the van to come to 
its assistance. The plan involved the exposure of 
the leading ships of his columns to a concentrated fire 
without support — a fire to which, being head-on to the 
enemy, they could not effectively reply for a long time. 
CoUingwood's flagship, the Royal Sovereign, was, indeed, 
for half an hour under the fire of five ships before her 
next astern got into action. She was, however, greatly 
ahead of station, having been freshly coppered, and 
therefore able to outsail her consorts. The plan was 
audacious to the point of rashness. But Nelson 
knew the enemy he was fighting. He knew the ineffi- 
ciency of the Spanish contingent, and he took the risk 
in order to obtain a more complete victory. In the 
result, twenty-two of the enemy were taken or destroyed 
out of thirty-three, and all but two of the remainder 
surrendered in Cadiz harbour three years later. The 
annihilation which Nelson sought was gained. 

It is worth noting, perhaps, that Nelson reserved for 
himself at Trafalgar, on a larger scale, the part which he 
had played in the first fleet action in which he took 
part, that of St. Vincent. As he then flung himself 
across the path of the Spanish weather division in order 
to prevent it bearing down to the relief of the detached 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 211 

lee division, so at Trafalgar he purposed to engage 
the allied van to prevent it coming to the assistance of 
the threatened rear. To do this, he had to break 
through the enemy's centre, cutting off four ships 
between himself and CoUingwood as he did so. The 
accident of the Redoubtable getting across his bows 
as he went through prevented the completion of the 
movement and brought about his death. But his piu:- 
pose was achieved by the other ships of his division. 
The effect of his death on his fleet is quaintly told by a 
bluejacket of the Royal Sovereign, who wrote to his 
father after the action : 

Our dear Admiral Nelson is killed, so we have paid 
pretty sharply for licking 'em. I never set eyes on him, for 
which I am both glad and sorry; for, to be sure, I should 
have liked to have seen him — but then all the men in our 
ship who have seen him are such soft toads, they have done 
nothing but blast their eyes and cry ever since he was killed. 
God bless you! Chaps that fought like the devil sit down 
and cry like a wench. 

What manner of man must he have been whose 
death so affected the rough tarpaulins of 1805? 

So ended the second act of the great drama of sea 
power. How much had been accomplished towards the 
final victory, not even Ministers themselves in Britain 
realised. The land campaign had already opened dis- 
astrously for the Austrians. Mack with twenty thou- 
sand men surrendered at Ulm on the day before 
Trafalgar was fought. The Austrians and Russians were 
overthrown at Austerlitz on December 5th following. 
The news, it is said, killed Pitt. But Austerlitz was, 
none the less, the first-fruits of Trafalgar. France, her 
trade cut off, was in dire misery, which could only be 



212 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

relieved by victories on the Continent and the spoils of 
conquered nations. Napoleon was to know no respite 
during which he might consolidate his power. The 
European nations, besides the plentiful financial help 
which victorious and wealthy Britain could, and did, 
afford them with lavish hand, always found a fulcrum 
of resistance to the universal tyrant in her might upon 
the element where his genius for war could not rule. 
If the land was to conquer the sea, land and sea forces 
must touch at some point. Since Napoleon could make 
no effective effort on the sea itself, that point must be 
on the coast — in the ports. Hence he was compelled to 
dissipate his strength in excentric efforts. He endeav- 
oured to exclude British trade from the Continent by the 
decrees of Berlin and Milan. Yet British goods poured 
into the ports of Northern Europe, and Great Britain, 
retaliating with the Orders in Council, took toll of every- 
thing which went to feed and clothe the people of 
France, and the very armies of Napoleon himself. 
He tried to revive the project of 1801, and to combine 
the navies of the smaller Powers with the remnants of 
his own and that of Spain. Great Britain seized the 
Danish fleet in 1807. Portugal resisted the peremptory 
demands made upon her, both to lend the use of her 
fleet and to prohibit British trade. Napoleon sent 
Junot with an army corps to bring pressure upon her, 
and this was the first irritation which set up the ' ' Spanish 
ulcer. " 

To grapple with the resistance of the little State, the 
staunch and age-long Ally of Great Britain, it was neces- 
sary to Napoleon to have secure communications. 
These could not be had by sea, but only through Spain. 
If he could not control the sea, he was determined to 
control the coasts, which, apparently, he thought 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 213 

amounted to the same thing. He occupied Madrid 
^d taking advantage of a quarrel between the Krng of 
Spain and his eldest son, he set his brother Joseph on the 
throne. The Portuguese Court fied ^ Brazil. But 
the British were now, since the danger of invasion had 
passed away, prepared to play a stronger part in the 
fand campaign. An expedition was sent to Usbon 
under Sir Arthur Wellesley, which defeated Junots 
^y at Vimiero. Just previously, the Spanish gW- 
rrJhad compelled the surrender of a F-neh ai^y 
corps at Baylen, and, in the upshot, the whole French 
army in Portugal wa. forced to capitulate, and wa^ s^t 
back to France in British transports under the Conven- 
tion of Cintra. a^.^A 
It was the worst blow the Emperor had ever sufiered. 
The Power of the Sea had foiled him once more. The 
arm of Great Britain was stretched out to aid the 
Spanish irregulars in fighting against his despotisrn 
when none other but she could aid. The ally which 
had been subservient to him when under the Bourbon 
dynasty was now in revolt against his owti brother. 
Sea power was once more exercised on behalf of liberty. 
Napoleon readily appreciated what this upnsmg of a 
minor State against his authority might mean. He 
recalled his first-line army from Germany, took com- 
mand of it himself, reoccupied Madrid, and crushed 
the Spanish rising ahnost completely for the time^ 
Then Sir John Moore, with some twenty thousand 
British troops, made an audacious movement against 
his communications with France. The Emperor s plans 
were entirely dislocated.and he himself never canng to be 
associated with failure, returned to Pans under the plea 
of the threatening condition of affairs m mid-Europe. 
Soult marched against Moore, and cut him oft from 



214 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Lisbon, which was easy for him to do. But he could 
not cut him off from the sea. Moore retreated north- 
wards to Corunna, where, in a battle fought to cover 
the embarkation of his army, he lost his life. But the 
army escaped to fight again. The mighty Emperor's 
power ended at high-water mark. 

Corunna was fought on January 9, 1809. It was 
the year of Eckmiihl, Essling, and Wagram. In less 
than twelve months more, Napoleon was to humiliate 
the proud Hapsburg by taking his daughter to his bed. 
But Essling was the most definite defeat he had yet 
experienced, Wagram was a pyrrhic victory, and the 
troops employed in the campaign were less the veterans 
of France than the levies of Saxony, Bavaria, and Poland. 
The legions of Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland were, for 
the most part, in Spain, where they were exhausting 
their energies against the Spanish guerilleros, supported 
by thirty thousand elusive Britons. Nor was this all, 
or, perhaps, the worst. The national spirit was rising 
all over Europe, stimulated by the example of Spain. 
Schill, in North Germany, and Andreas Hofer, in the 
Tyrol, were in arms against the would-be tyrant of 
the world. North and south he was forced to excentric 
movement ; wherever the resistance to him touched the 
sea it was sure of support from the ships of Britain. It 
is interesting to note that Heligoland came into our 
hands in 1807 as a depot whence trade with the Elbe 
could be carried on in defiance of Napoleon's Berlin 
Decree. 

Napoleon's career had now certainly passed its high- 
water mark, whatever date may be properly assigned 
to that epoch. Perhaps he reached the pinnacle of his 
fame on the raft at Tilsit, where the young and impulsive 
Tsar, Alexander I., vowed friendship to him and Frederick 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 215 

William of Prussia was his dog? Austerlitz, Jena, and 
Friedland lay immediately behind him — but so did 
Trafalgar. No, Tilsit was not his real zenith. It was 
the first glory of the after-glow. The sun of Austerlitz 
had set before its rising. He had the Continent at his 
feet before the Peace of Amiens. A just and equitable 
use of his military triumph could then have established 
the peace of Europe upon a firm foundation. Peace 
at home might have set him upon the throne of an 
unexhausted and contented realm. But while the sea 
power remained unsubdued to his arms, peace was to 
him but gall and wormwood. His dreams of empire 
were unfulfilled. "Capax imperii, nisi imperasset" is 
more true of Napoleon than of the Caesar against whom 
the crushing irony was first launched. To many that 
verdict may seem a paradox. But it is just. 

Great Britain was now committed to Continental war 
with an army inadequate in numbers, but of tougher 
material than any other army in the field, a general of 
capacity only second to that of Napoleon himself, 
officers who were then to prove, for the first time in 
Europe, their power of training and leading brave men 
of another race, and the sea, her own undisputed high- 
way, at the back of all her effort. Napoleon learned, 
as Philip II. and Philip V. had learned, each in turn, 
that Lisbon was nearer to London than to Madrid. 
Heavy as was the blow struck by Nelson at Trafalgar, 
there could be no greater mistake than to suppose 
that the navy of France was absolutely destroyed. 
The greatest of her fleets, that of Ganteaume in Brest, 
remained untouched. British seamen were still com- 
pelled, all through the ensuing years, to spend them- 
selves in maintaining a sleepless watch on French ports. 
Actions between single ships, and even small squadrons, 



2i6 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

were frequent. Yet all this time communications were 
maintained between the Mother Country and the 
Peninsular army, a thousand miles distant along a line 
which passed by each of the enemy's chief military 
ports in turn. The safe withdrawal of Sir John Moore's 
army from Corunna was the first instance of the 
advantage conferred on a small land force by the adroit 
use of sea power. The years following show to those 
who have eyes to see that on the same basis the whole 
of Wellington's success in the Peninsula was built. 
His impregnable fortress of Torres Vedras was flanked 
by the sea and supplied from the sea. The French army, 
with its communications stretched over the element its 
master was supposed to command, starved. Welling- 
ton's army lacked for nothing save that which the 
ineptitude of the authorities at home failed to supply. 
He advanced or he retreated, according to the effort 
which the Emperor was able, or was compelled, to put 
forth to check him. But whether he advanced or 
retreated, his army was always secure against disaster, 
and the drain of the "Spanish ulcer" upon his oppo- 
nent's resources became greater and greater. At last, 
when the hour of final victory struck and he was able to 
move forward from the field of Vittoria to the Pyrenees, 
he let go his hold on Lisbon, shortened his line of com- 
munications by establishing his base at San Sebastian, 
and moved his small army forward to Toulouse and 
Bordeaux. It took six hundred thousand Continental 
soldiers to wrest victory from Napoleon in the "Battle 
of the Nations" at Leipsic. Even that mighty effort 
might have been unsuccessful but for the handful with 
which Wellington was supporting the resistance of the 
Spanish nation and forcing his way up to southern 
France. 



SEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 217 

Sea power triumphant exerted its influence from the 
Vistula to the Douro; from the Elbe to the Bosporus. 
Alexander I., sated with the acquisition of Finland, and 
exasperated by the rigours of the Continental system, 
became, first a lukewarm friend, and then, in 18 12, an 
open foe. The elaborate plan of Napoleon to keep 
Turkey as "a mask" to cover his right flank failed, 
owing to the predominance of British influence in 
Constantinople. This influence predominated, partly 
owing to the impression made by Sir Sidney Smith's 
assistance in the defence of Acre, and partly owing to 
that made by Duckworth's passage of the Dardanelles 
in 1807. The huge disaster of the Russian campaign 
completed what the "Spanish ulcer" had begun, and it 
was the march of Tchitschakoff, released from the 
Turkish campaign, on Minsk which turned the retreat 
of the Grand Army into a debacle. Germany rose 
in arms from end to end. The position of Marie Louise 
as Empress was insufficient deterrent to keep Austria 
from joining the new coalition. The defection of the 
Bavarians at Lobau completed the desertion of the 
falling Emperor by his vassals and allies. He became 
for the first time the prisoner of Great Britain, and was 
sent to rule the island of Elba, guarded by the force 
which alone he had failed to overcome. After the 
Hundred Days, he returned to that captivity from 
which he was to escape no more: 

How far is St. Helena from the Capes of Trafalgar? 

A longish way — a longish way — with ten year more to run. 
It's south across the water underneath a setting star, 

{What you cannot finish you must leave undone!) 

There we may leave Napoleon. Sea power, reso- 
lutely and unflinchingly used, had fulfilled its task, 



2i8 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

though not without much harm being wrought to the 
nation which wielded it. For all her command of the 
sea, Great Britain was at one period brought to scarcity 
by the operation of the Continental system,^ and that 
although she was still to a great extent self-supporting, 
so far as the necessaries of life were concerned. Worst 
of all, the methods she was compelled to adopt led to 
war with the great offshoot of her race across the 
Atlantic, and kept the sore created by the War of 
Independence open for many years. It is, perhaps, 
only within the last few happy months that Great Brit- 
ain and the United States have at last been able to 
realise their common destiny in the service of the liberty 
of mankind. It is difficult for an Englishman to find 
justification for the action of the American Government 
in making a casus belli of commercial grievances at a 
time when every nerve was strained to grapple with 
the enemy of all liberty. But the dead may now bury 
its dead. It is a common belief that the British Navy 
showed some deterioration from the standard of 
Trafalgar days when the issue was joined with the 
America\ns. There is some truth, but not much, in the 
belief. Between 1805 and 18 12, there was much weary 
watching and but little fighting. Seamanship was 
more studied because, for the moment, more important 
than gunnery. If the enemy was met at all he was an 
enemy vastly deteriorated in efficiency. But the loss of 
frigates to the well-found and highly trained American 
ships really proves very little. The British Navy 
was still undergoing a most anxious time in European 
waters, with the communications of Wellington's army 
in its charge, and the great blockade to maintain. 
The ships and captains who could be spared were, for 
the most part, not among the best in the service. 



vSEA POWER SAVES EUROPE 219 

Losses were, in such circumstances, inevitable. But, 
despite the showy successes gained by the American 
frigates, the United States were strangled by the sea 
power of Britain, which upheld all the objects for which 
she fought. British statesmen had no desire to push 
matters with the United States to extremities, and an 
easy peace was concluded at Ghent. 

The attempt to make the land conquer the sea failed 
utterly, even in the strong_ hands of Napoleon. It has 
never yet succeeded in history, and it is permissible to 
believe that it never will. Great Britain emerged from 
the struggle with her great Imperial future before her. 
How she used her opportunity it wiU be the purpose of 
the next chapter to outline. 



CHAPTER X 

THE RESTORER OF PATHS 

The Peace of 1815 left Great Britain with the fol- 
lowing places in her hands, besides those she possessed 
before: In Europe, Malta, the Ionian Islands, and Pleli- 
goland; in Asia, Mauritius, and Ceylon; in Africa, the 
Cape of Good Hope; and in the New World, the islands 
of Trinidad, Tobago, and Santa Lucia, with the old 
Dutch colony of Demerara, She had, moreover, defi- 
nitely made good her claim to Australia and had begun 
to settle it; she had "blazed the trail" across the North 
American Continent to Vancouver. Her territorial 
gains, therefore, were not small, and were even more 
important by reason of their position than of their ex- 
tent. Almost absent-mindedly (though the statement is 
a rash one, in view of the highly developed sea-sense of 
which the statesmanship of Britain had given evidence), 
the British came to possess those "gates of the world, " 
which were to acquire such great consequence in the 
coming age of steam. For the sake of clearness, the 
enumeration of the naval positions acquired between 
the close of the war against Napoleon and that against 
William II. will be here continued. 

New Zealand, which had been incorporated in the 
State of New South Wales in the early nineteenth cen- 
tury, was formally annexed to the British Crown by 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 221 

the Treaty of Waingari in 1840. The island of Singa- 
pore was acquired by purchase from the Sultan of 
Johore in 1824, and this was followed, little by little, 
by the development of the Straits Settlements and the 
Federated Malay States. In 1839, ^ dispute with the 
Arab Sultan of Aden, who had taken prisoner and mal- 
treated some British sailors, resulted in the annexation 
of that renowned "cinder heap," one of the most 
powerful naval fortresses in the world. Two years 
later, as the result of the first Chinese War, we took and 
held Hong-Kong. The Mediterranean position of the 
Empire was strengthened by the occupation of Cyprus 
in 1878 and of Egypt in 1882. Towards the end of the 
century, the Soudan was recovered from barbarism, 
giving us the port of Suakim on the Red Sea, and large 
acquisitions were made in East Africa. In South 
Africa, Natal was made a British possession in 1843, 
while the enclave of Walfisch Bay was secured in 1878. 
To continue the list would be tedious. The develop- 
ment of submarine telegraphy, in which we naturally 
led the world, necessitated the acquisition of islands in 
every sea: places in themselves of little account, such as 
Easter Island, Strategical value, or the fear that they 
might pass into the hands of rivals, compelled us to 
"peg out a claim" to other places of actual or potential 
strength, such as Perim, Socotra, Wei-hai-wei, and 
Koweit, on the Persian Gulf. Thus we have acquired 
"the gates of the world," with the single exception of 
Constantinople, the eventual possession of which is at 
present in doubt. We have given the Ionian Islands to 
Greece, and Heligoland to Germany, graceful conces- 
sions for which it seems unlikely that we shall receive 
any mundane reward. 
With Gibraltar and Egypt in our hands, reinforced 



222 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

by Malta as a central pivot, we control the passage of 
the Mediterranean. Aden and Perim lock the door of 
the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, from the south and north 
respectively; Singapore controls the Straits of Malacca 
and the road to the Far East. The Cape of Good 
Hope is the "nodal point" on the long sea route both to 
India and to Australasia. The Falkland Islands watch 
the passage round the Horn, while Jamaica is as well 
placed as Cuba for controlling the exit of the Panama 
Canal. Finally, in the Straits of Dover we hold the 
key to the Channel, and from Scapa Flow, control the 
passage north-about. The British Islands lie like a 
breakwater off the mainland of Central Europe. The 
hard facts of geography, and not British jealousy or 
ill-will, forbid the development of an oversea Empire 
of Germany, unless Great Britain can first be subdued. 
If the Germans cherished such ambitions, war was, 
from the first, inevitable. We could not clear our- 
selves out of the way, even if we would. 

Strictly speaking, of course, a fortress or a naval 
station no more "controls " a sea route than the stations 
on theTube "go" east or west, as the placards quaintly 
announce. It is the fleet based on such places, or draw- 
ing its supplies from them, which controls the route; 
the fleet or the ships which at once guard the station 
and are sheltered or succoured by it. If such bases 
are to be adequate to their purpose, however, they 
must be sufficiently strong, in a military sense, to 
defend themselves against attack in the absence of the 
fleet on its lawful occasions ; otherwise the fleet becomes 
a mere defence of the fortress and suffers all the dis- 
abilities of an army in having to guard its own lines of 
communications. Apart from the great military sta- 
tions like Gibraltar, Aden, Simon's Bay, Colombo, 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 223 

Singapore, and Hong-Kong — and sometimes combined 
with them — we have acquired an unsurpassed chain of 
coaling stations and commercial ports all over the world, 
so that the world's traffic, with the exception of that of 
the United States and South American ports, mainly 
passes over routes in which all the stations are British. 
Hence it follows that the things requisite for ocean 
travel — coal, supplies, repairing yards, and so forth — 
are mostly to be found in British ports. We have the 
largest mercantile marine as well as the strongest war- 
navy in the world, and, as we now know, in the age of 
steam as in the age of sail, our mercantile strength in 
time of peace has given our Navy strength in time of 
war. This has been largely due to the wise policy which 
has thrown open our ports to all and sundry to trade in 
and to use, for thereby other nations have been relieved 
of the necessity of developing resources of their own 
overseas, and the time of crisis found all the important 
links in the chain of communications in our hands. 

In 1 81 5, we were at the parting of the ways. We 
had emerged from a great struggle more powerful than 
any nation upon earth — more powerful, that is, in the 
wider politics of the world. It would have been an evil 
thing for humanity in general, and not least for our- 
selves if, having a giant's strength, we had used it as a 
giant. A Briton is entitled to say, without cant or 
hypocrisy, and with full acknowledgment of the blun- 
ders, failings, and sins of this nation and its rulers, that, 
on the whole, this power has been used for the benefit 
of mankind, and in a large and unselfish spirit. A 
historian says of Britain in the years immediately 
following the downfall of Napoleon : 

Never before had the whole moral of the nation been 
JO modified in so short a space of time. . . . Nine years 



224 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

spent in waging a war of opinions and ideas, and twelve 
years more spent in fighting for existence and empire, had 
made Great Britain wary, resolute, and far-sighted as she 
had never been before. . . . Faction had died down in 
a way which would have seemed incredible to an eight- 
eenth century politician. . . . The improvement in politics 
was only a symptom of the general moral improvement of 
the nation. The war had sobered Britain. . . . If it taught 
the nation that civic virtue and conscientious will to work 
must be demanded from the leaders, it also required a better 
general level of life and duty from every man. This was 
strengthened by a strong religious revival. . . . For the 
first time since the old Parliamentary wars, men armed 
with a crusading spirit against a spiritual enemy, and the 
cry "For God and the King" had a real meaning. 

The words might have been written of this our day, 
*when the old spirit has so miraculously revived, showing 
that, after a hundred years of ease and prosperity un- 
known before, the nation has bred true to type : as prone 
as ever to resist "spiritual wickedness in high places." 
Sea power is a force potent to promote right, if it be 
rightly used. After 1815 it was in our hands without a 
question. Was it rightly used? Has it contributed to 
the spread of freedom in the world and to the general 
good of mankind? There is abundant evidence that it 
has, and the best is the fact that despite the spread 
of commercialism, with its inherent selfishness, our old 
national ideals rang true as in the eighteenth century 
when they were challenged. 

Let us put the matter to the test. Europe had 
exhausted itself in a war of ideas which had become a 
war of ambitions. Outside, the world was still full of 
violence and cruel habitations. The European, con- 
fident of superiority, and impelled by greed, used all 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 225 

other races as pawns in his game, or counters in his mart. 
No law ran on the sea but the law of the strongest. 
One of the clauses in the Treaty of Utrecht, the most 
profitable, in a material sense, and the most shameful in 
a moral, was the famous Assiento, which transferred 
to Great Britain the monopoly of the slave trade 
between Africa and the New World. The British 
people first showed their moral title to the sovereignty 
of the seas by the almost instantaneous revolt of the 
national conscience against the advantages so gained. 
Not that the profits were immediately foregone. Far 
from it. But, as early as 1772, Lord Mansfield gave a 
judgment in the case of the negro, Somerset, which 
practically decided that no man could be a slave on 
the soil of Great Britain herself. It was not, however, 
till 1807 that the slave trade was made illegal, thanks 
to the work of Clarkson, the elder Wilberforce, and 
Zachary Macaulay. The British people, moreover, 
were not content with abolishing it, so far as regarded 
their own ships and possessions. The whole force of 
the British Navy was used to put it down, after the 
consent of other European Powers had been obtained 
to the declaration of illegality. Finally, slavery itself 
was abolished in all British possessions. Up to quite 
recently we expended thousands of pounds and many 
lives in suppressing the traffic in the Indian Ocean 
and the Persian Gulf, at not a little risk to our political 
position there, in the face of German rivalry. 

To cleanse the sea of piracy was a task which went 
hand in hand with the extirpation of the slaver. Piracy 
still abounded, not only in the distant seas, but in the 
Mediterranean, when Napoleon fell. There is nothing 
stranger in Nelson's career than his relations with the 
piratical States of Barbary, with the Bey of Tunis and 

IS 



226 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the Dey of Algiers, with whom he treated aknost on 
the footing of an equal, cajoling and coercing them to 
refrain from giving aid and comfort to the French. 
After 1815, the hour speedily struck which brought 
about the end of these nefarious monuments of Turkish 
misgovernment and weakness. In 18 16, Great Britain 
demanded reparation from the Barbary States for 
injuries wrought on British subjects. All Christian 
slaves were to be given up, and guarantees given 
that no more would be taken. Tunis and Tripoli, 
conscious of weakness, yielded at once. But the 
Dey of Algiers was recalcitrant. The place was 
immensely strong, and the British Government were 
aghast when stout old Lord Exmouth, Pellew of the 
blockade of Cadiz, undertook to reduce it with five sail- 
of-the-line. He was joined by some Dutch frigates, 
and sailed into the harbour on October 20th. The 
Dey returned no answer to his demand for restitution, 
and next day — the anniversary of Trafalgar — ^he 
opened fire. The action was a bloody one, costing 
considerable loss to the British; but the fortifications 
were shattered, the fleet destroyed, and the Dey 
conceded all Exmouth's terms. That Great Britain 
had no rapacious design is shown by the fact that the 
place was left in the hands of the native ruler, and so 
continued until the French took it in 1830. 

Thirty years later, the British undertook the same 
work on behalf of humanity in the Eastern seas. An 
Englishman, James Brooke, had become the Rajah of 
the State of Sarawak, in North-West Borneo. The 
seas around the coast were infested with Malay and 
Dyak pirates. Brooke was not strong enough by him- 
self to subdue them, so Sir Harry Keppel was sent with 
the Dido and Meander to his assistance. The pirates of 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 227 

the Saribus and Sekaran, who were sea Dyaks led by 
Malays, and the Sooloo and Lanun Malays, made a 
stout resistance, but were overpowered. Piracy was 
wiped out in those seas as an institution, though it 
persisted sporadically among the Chinese for many 
years longer, and even still shows itself from time to 
time. The examples given are merely instances of the 
work the British Navy did to make the seas safe for 
traders of all nations, as a matter of course, simply 
because we were the first Sea Power and acknowledged 
the obligation which lay upon us. Of necessity, we 
served our own ends first. But we shared the advan- 
tage gained with every nation whose flag appeared at sea. 

Contrast the state of affairs which has prevailed at 
sea since 18 15 with that which prevailed during all the 
preceding centuries. The sea was the possession of 
none ; therefore no man gave the law. Private war was 
freely levied; trade was carried on only with the high 
hand, in the teeth of the attempts of one country 
or another to maintain a monopoly. Colonies were 
always regarded as the strict preserve of their Mother 
Country, and organised smuggling led to constant 
encounters between the smugglers and the preventive 
forces of the nation whose rights were assailed. There 
was always war on the seas, and the greater number 
of merchantmen either sailed armed or under convoy. 
Great Britain arose as the Restorer of the Path. Only 
a Power dominant as she had become could have done 
the work which she did. Only a Power imbued with 
big ideals would have used the power as she used it. 
The Freedom of the Seas, before the days of Great 
Britain's control, meant the freedom of the malefactor. 

To use the term Free Trade is, unfortunately, to 
raise visions of political controversy. But, in its 



228 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

essence, Free Trade means much more than the imposi- 
tion of customs duties of a greater or less amount on 
imported goods. That is a matter of expediency. It 
is a poHcy which may be followed by one generation and 
revoked by the next without in the least disturbing the 
principle. Customs duties on cargoes may differentiate 
between the goods of one country and another, or 
between different kinds of goods. But while the ships 
of all countries are free to use the ports of all countries 
on equal terms, there is, in essence, free trade. That 
was the principle estabHshed by Great Britain, the 
owner of far the largest mercantile marine in the world. 
On it the maritime prosperity of the smaller countries 
such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Greece, is 
founded. By virtue of it, even more than by the reten- 
tion of her East Indian possessions, some remnant of 
the maritime greatness of Holland remains. Indirectly, 
we have taxed ourselves to aJEf ord naval protection under 
which these countries have flourished and grown rich. 
This is not altruism. The policy suited us, and it 
remains, as ever, our interest to see that the border- 
States of Europe remain free and prosperous. But, 
after 1815, we threw over completely every principle 
on which the mercantile system was founded, and sub- 
stituted for it a freedom which made the sea the true 
highway of the nations. 

The theory on which this poHcy was founded has, 
doubtless, been carried too far. We saw the world 
pouring into our ports and marts, its riches from every 
clime in the ships of all nations. Wherever a com- 
modity could be produced best and cheapest, there we 
sought it ; whatever ship could convey it most cheaply, 
that we employed to convey it. In return, we secured, 
for a time, at least, cheap production in our mining and 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 229 

manufactures, and we held the markets of the world. 
Although other nations were ahead of us in the develop- 
ment of the marine steam engine, yet our skill in ship- 
building and the proximity of coal and iron to our ports 
and estuaries kept us well ahead in the race for primacy 
when iron and steel ships supplanted wooden. We 
turned out tonnage, not only for ourselves, but for our 
competitors. This is not the place to argue as to 
economic soundness of this policy. But it is permissible 
to point out that it was essentially a peace policy ; that 
it took no account of efforts deliberately made to 
destroy our maritime supremacy by the adoption of 
plans similar to those of Colbert, nor did it allow for 
the fact, still more serious, that we might find ourselves 
involved in war with a Power capable of dealing severe 
blows at our commerce, while we were dependent on 
imports from abroad for the necessaries of life. There 
have been numerous attempts since 1 815 to draw up an 
international code to regulate the rights and duties of 
belligerents and neutrals during a period of sea warfare. 
In every one, the instructions of the British delegates 
have been framed on the assumption that we should 
be neutral, not belligerent. As the greatest oversea 
traders, we stood to lose most from the operations 
of belligerent Powers, if we were neutral, and sea warfare 
was not restricted. As the greatest Sea Power, in a 
naval sense, we stood to lose most if it were, supposing 
us to be belligerent. The result of letting our agri- 
culture decay, of becoming dependent on foreign ore, 
instead of working our own iron deposits, and of suffer- 
ing bounty-fed sugar to kill the industry of our West 
India Islands, is now seen to have been disastrous in a 
national sense, however profitable it may have been in 
the economic sense to buy in the cheapest market. 



230 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

None the less, the maritime policy of Great Britain 
during the last hundred years is one of which we may 
legitimately be proud, and which has won results 
unknown before in the history of the world. She did 
more, indeed, than open her ports and the ports of the 
Empire oversea ; more, even, than suppress piracy in the 
interests of mankind and the slave trade in the name 
of humanity and the Gospel of Christ. Her ships of 
war, once the cannon was silent, were sent into every 
sea, exploring, sounding, surveying, charting, marking 
the spot for a lighthouse here and a beacon there. It is 
enough to mention two of these expeditions: That of 
the Beagle in 1831, as a consequence of which Charles 
Darwin revolutionised, if he did not create, the science 
of biology, and that of the Challenger, in 1872-6, with 
the valuable knowledge gained of deep-sea soundings. 
Both the Arctic and the Antarctic regions were explored, 
and, though it did not fall to the lot of a Briton to 
discover either the North or the South Pole, yet such 
men as Franklin, Ross, McClintock, Nares, Scott, 
and Shackleton were the pioneers who made the 
successes of Peary and Amundsen possible. 

Britain went to war with Revolutionary France in 
1792 on account of the Proclamation of the French 
rulers that the forces of the Revolution would be used 
to assist any nation which wished to free itself from 
monarchical government. The consequence of that 
policy was that France herself first passed under the 
military despotism of Napoleon, and that, when that 
despotism was destroyed, the greater part of the Con- 
tinent of Europe found its neck beneath the yoke of the 
Holy Alliance, while, of the remainder, a large propor- 
tion remained enslaved to the Turk. It was left for sea 
power to be instrumental in the work of liberation. 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 231 

Most people are now prepared to admit, with Lord 
Salisbury, that we "backed the wrong horse" when we 
supported the Turk against the Russians in 1854 and 
again in 1877-8. We were moved by concern for the 
route to India, and by suspicion of the designs of 
Russia, founded in part on the so-called "Will of Peter 
the Great, " and in part of the real aggressiveness of her 
action in Central Asia. Moreover, so long as Egypt 
remained in fact a part of the dominions of the Sultan, 
the passing of Constantinople into the hands of the 
Power which controlled the Black Sea was a very real 
danger. British interests, therefore, seemed to demand 
that the Empire of the Turk should be maintained, while 
British instinct cried out for the redemption of his 
persecuted subjects. These cross-currents are apparent 
all through the history of our foreign relations from 1828 
onwards, and they found their culmination in the great 
duel between Disraeli and Gladstone in 1877-80. In 
the upshot, we fell between two stools, preserving the 
Turk as a malevolent force in Europe, while earning 
his ill-will by intervention, covenanted or otherwise, 
on behalf of his subjects. Brimstone and treacle, 
while admirable as a domestic medicine, is rarely service- 
able in business or politics. 

Our first essay in liberation is full of interest to us 
to-day. In 1821 the Greeks rose in rebellion against 
their Turkish masters. The horrible cruelties of the 
Ottoman troops aroused the indignation of all Europe. 
The imagination of the British was especially stirred by 
the presence of Lord Byron as a volunteer, fighting in the 
Greek ranks. An international squadron of British, 
French, and Russian ships was sent to Greek waters. It 
consisted of twenty-four vessels, of which seven were 
British ships-of-the-line. The Turks and Egyptians 



232 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

had over forty vessels of war, besides transports. The 
Allied fleet had not intended action, but, when a shot 
was fired at the French flagship, the wrath of the sailors 
at the atrocities committed by the Turks and the bad 
faith shown could not be restrained. A four-hours' 
engagement resulted in the destruction of the combined 
Ttirkish and Egyptian fleets. The Independence of 
Greece was recognised, and Great Britain, France, and 
Russia thus gained the title to be the protectors of that 
country, on which their action of to-day is based. The 
Battle of Navarino was fought almost on the same spot 
as Salamis and Lepanto. Ibrahim Pasha, son of Mehe- 
met Ali, Pasha of Egypt, remained in the Morea a year 
longer, when he was forced to retire by a French force 
under General Maison. But the lesson of Navarino is 
practically that of Salamis: that no power can hold 
Helas which has lost command of the sea. 

The power of Great Britain was destined to clash 
with Ibrahim Pasha again twelve years later, when the 
Egyptian forces advanced through Syria to the con- 
quest of the Turkish dominions in Asia Minor. It is 
possible that the ambitious Albanian — for such was the 
race of Mehemet Ali — might have seized the Imperial 
Throne of Constantinople and the Khalifate. But a 
combined squadron of British, Turkish, and Austrian 
ships, under Sir R. Stopford, bombarded St. Jean d' 
Acre, and stayed the com-se of the Egyptians on the 
very spot where Sidney Smith had made Napoleon 
"miss his destiny. " Since that time, British sea power 
has intervened in the affairs of Eastern Europe on many 
occasions, in Egypt, in Crete, and at other places, in a 
vain endeavour to save the Turk from himself. Success- 
ful or unsuccessful, the dispatch of a fleet has always 
been the readiest way of bringing pressure to bear, and 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 233 

Lord Salisbury, who never seemed thoroughly to 
understand the principles of sea power, took far too nar- 
row a view of the possibiHties when, in defending him- 
self against the charge of inaction in the cause of the 
Armenians, he dismissed the matter with the remark 
that "You cannot send ironclads up Mount Ararat." 

The campaign against Arabi Pasha and the revolted 
Egyptian army was remarkable from a naval point of 
view in several ways. In the first place, it afforded 
another instance of the commander of an army making 
use of the command of the sea to shift his base. Sir 
Garnet Wolseley thus avoided a difficult flank march in 
face of the lines of Kafr Dowar, and, by re-embarking 
his army and landing it on the bank of the Suez Canal 
at Ismailia, forced Arabi to evacuate his position and 
change front at Tel-el-Kebir. Sir Garnet now had the 
use of the Sweet Water Canal, and was able, after a 
night march, to attack the Egyptian lines at dawn. 
That evening, Drury Lowe's cavalry were in Cairo. 

Apart from the military interest, the Egyptian affair, 
with its aftermath, the campaigns in the Soudan, are 
notable from the fact that they formed a part of the 
bloodless struggle between British and French sea 
power which continued from the overthrow of Napoleon 
till it was happily terminated by the establishment of 
the Entente Cordiale and the growing evidence of Ger- 
man ambition. The departure of the French fleet 
before the bombardment of Alexandria, which placed 
the administration of Egypt solely in the hands of 
Great Britain, and the Fashoda incident are recalled 
only to bring home the fact that superior sea power was 
able to work its will without the necessity for hostilities, 
but none the less decisively. Another instance is to be 
found in the story of the Italian struggle for freedom. 



234 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Napoleon III., in 1859, made war against Austria, 
promising that he would not sheath his sword till 
Italy was free from the Alps to the Adriatic, After 
the two victories of Solferino and Magenta, however, 
the threatening attitude of Prussia and the North 
German Confederation, as well as the unwillingness 
of Roman Catholic Prance to countenance measures 
against the Papal States, impelled him to sign the 
Treaty of Villafranca. By this instrument he not only 
failed to redeem the promises he had made, but he 
spoiled Italy of Savoy and Nice, which were to have 
been his only if he fulfilled his promise. Had it not 
been for the backing which the British Ministry gave 
to the Italian claims, Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and a 
part of the States of the Church would have been lost to 
the kingdom of Piedmont. The Italians recognised 
that they owed more to the moral support of British sea 
power than they did to the material aid of France. Nor 
was that all they were to owe. When Garibaldi, having 
made himself master of Sicily, crossed to the mainland 
and drove the Edng of Naples into Gaeta, Napoleon III. 
sent the French fleet thither to protect the latter. 
Lord John Russell protested effectually against the 
action of the French, and Garibaldi was left to continue 
his operations without interference. Here the Land 
Power, France, was stopped by a threat to its frontiers. 
The Sea Power, unfettered by any such fear, was suc- 
cessful without firing a shot. 

In other directions also Great Britain was instru- 
mental during this period in foiling the effort of the 
sovereigns of the Continent to rivet the principles of 
the Holy AlHance on the necks of European peoples. 
The independence and neutrality of Belgium were 
secured by treaty — so far as a "scrap of paper" could 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 235 

secure them; the independence of the Spanish settle- 
ments in South America, won in part by the efforts of 
Cochrane and other British sailors and soldiers, was 
secured against a movement on the part of Spain and 
France by the joint action of Great Britain and the 
United States. The national government of Spain 
herself was likewise supported against French aggres- 
sion. It may be said, though with some caution, that 
the fruits of the French Revolution during this period 
were consolidated against reaction behind the asgis 
of the British Navy. The subject is too wide to follow 
out in detail here. But, from 1 815 to 1 871, the French 
nation was struggling uneasily against various forms of 
autocracy, whether imposed by the Legitimist mon- 
archy of Louis XVHL and Charles X., by the Liberal 
monarchy of Louis Philippe, or the Caesarism of Napo- 
leon HI. The French people were true to their ideals 
of liberty, but French wars were mainly dynastic, and 
the martial nation was easily roused by the cry, ''La 
Patrie en danger. " France had yet to find herself — the 
France that we know to-day — and, in the meantime, 
the defence of the smaller nations, of the principle of 
national unity and of liberty of thought and life, was 
left to the silent influence of the British Navy. The his- 
tory of Europe, and, indeed, of the world, for the past 
hundred years, can only be read rightly in the light of 
events from 19 14 onwards. 

In one direction. Great Britain was false to her 
ideals and her mission in the world. She allowed the 
Austro-Prussian attack on Denmark in 1864, and the 
annexation of the Duchies of Schleswig and Hol- 
stein to Prussia. This error gave Kiel to Germany, 
and laid the foundation on which the German Navy 
has been built. It was the direct outcome of the Ger- 



236 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

manism which had been allowed to pervade the Courts 
of Europe. 

The use of sea power during the Civil War in the 
United States is full of interest, but must be briefly- 
touched on. The superiority of the North at sea 
brought about the exhaustion of the Confederacy by 
the stringency of the blockade, while the direct naval 
action of Farragut at Mobile and elsewhere practically 
cut the South in two. The blockade was only main- 
tained by measures which strained the doctrines of 
international law, as then laid down, to the uttermost, 
and which caused serious friction between the Federal 
Government and this country. The United States 
which had gone to war with us in 1812 owing to the 
high-handedness of our restrictions on trade, bettered 
our model in their own hour of necessity. We, on our 
part, have occasion to be grateful to them now for 
the precedents then created, severe as was the distress 
caused to this country by their application at the time. 
In particular, if the American Courts had not then 
evolved the doctrine of Continuous Voyage, which lays 
it down that a ship attempting to run a blockade is 
capturable, whatever her immediate destination, if it 
can be proved that her cargo is ultimately consigned 
to the enemy, we could exercise no control whatever 
over goods going to Germany by way of the Dutch or 
Scandinavian ports. There were many reasons for the 
sympathy, now almost inexplicable, which was widely felt 
for the South among the British people. But, on the 
whole, the cause of the North was felt to be that which 
embodied British ideals and British traditions, and 
Lancashire starved without a murmur in order that that 
cause might prevail. In this was the first glimmering of 
the dawn which now shines in the union of the English- 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 237 

speaking peoples to maintain the principles for which 
their common forefathers fought. 

The latent sympathy came more fully to light when 
war broke out in 1898 between the United States and 
Spain, on account of the barbarities practised by the 
latter against the Cuban insurgents, the embarrass- 
ments caused to American trade by the long-drawn-out 
revolution in that island, and, above all, by the sinking 
of the battleship Maine in Havana Harbour. The 
naival incidents of that war supply useful comment on 
the true understanding of sea power. The Spaniards 
possessed a small squadron of three armoured cruisers 
and a couple of destroyers, available for service on the 
other side of the Atlantic. The American fleet was at 
least three or four times as strong, and included several 
first-class battleships. Yet the whole East Coast was 
thrown into a state of panic by the approach of Cer- 
vera's little force, and the naval dispositions of the 
authorities were seriously hampered by the popular 
outcry for local protection. Serious uneasiness pre- 
vailed concerning the fate of the battleship, Oregon, 
which was on the Pacific Coast at the outbreak of war, 
and which had to make the long voyage round the Horn 
unattended. The Spaniards were, of course, in posses- 
sion of the harbours, not only of Cuba, but also of Porto 
Rico, and there was, consequently, a real uncertainty 
as to the destination of the squadron. The Americans, 
having no bases on the European side of the Atlantic, 
could not watch it before it set out, according to the 
British method. But, even so, it is quite obvious 
that concentration, not dissipation, of force was the 
sound strategy. Instead of ships being kept to do 
"sentry-go" off the American coast, the Spanish har- 
bours should have been closely watched by the light 



238 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

forces, while the main fleet was kept concentrated at a 
central spot, ready to fall in force on the enemy when he 
appeared. As it was, the land expedition was kept 
waiting for weeks before embarkation, until Cervera 
was safely "bottled up" in the harbour of Santiago de 
Cuba. An advance against the land defences of the 
port at length drove him out on to the guns of Admiral 
Sampson's fleet, and his little squadron perished gal- 
lantly. A few months before, Admiral Dewey had 
destroyed a small squadron of antiquated ships in 
Manila Bay, and the Philippine Islands passed finally 
from Spain. Thus ended the once mighty oversea Em- 
pire of the Dons. The futility of trying to hold distant 
possessions without the power to protect the communi- 
cations with them was demonstrated once again. 

The Spanish-American War, however, was chiefly 
noticeable as an example of the silent but far-reaching 
force of British sea power. Continental Europe, with a 
fellow feeling for a sister in distress, and always resentful 
of the Monroe Doctrine, which, in truth, the Americans 
themselves violated by the seizure of the Spanish posses- 
sions, was of a mind to interfere. But the necessary 
condition of intervention was the adhesion of Great 
Britain to the Continental scheme. With British sea 
power hostile, or even doubtful, the military nations 
were powerless. Great Britain made no sign of acquies- 
cence, and the whole design fell to the ground. Nothing 
was done, or even said, overtly. But there was a sig- 
nificant incident in Manila Bay. A German squadron, 
which had followed Dewey from China, threatened to 
interfere with his operations. Sir Edward Chichester, 
who was in command of the British force on the spot, 
quietly anchored his ships between the Germans and 
the Americans. The hint was sufficient. 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 239 

In the following year sea power asserted its noiseless 
influence even more decisively. When the Boer War 
broke out, European sympathy, for reasons we can 
understand and, for the most part, respect, was very 
strongly on the side of the little peoples. Negotiations 
took place between certain Powers for active interfer- 
ence on behalf of the Boers. But there were then no 
three fleets in Europe capable of meeting the British, and 
the negotiations broke down. We carried our armies 
and all their stores and munitions over 6000 miles of 
sea, as if it had been along the highroads of our own 
country, and not all the ill-will in Europe could interfere 
with us. The German Emperor has taken credit for 
having personally vetoed a coalition against us. His 
claim may be justified. He was not ready. Nor did 
he want others to share the spoil. But he improved the 
occasion afforded by the capture of the Bundesrat, a Ger- 
man vessel conveying arms to the Boers, by uttering the 
first of his famous trilogy of sayings, "We are in bitter 
need of a strong Germany navy. ' ' Of this more hereafter. 

The Boer war revealed the existence of a new organic 
force in the world. Colonisation has always been an 
intrinsic part of sea power. But the colonies of other 
nations have been either subject and tributary to the 
Mother Country, or they have soon broken away from 
all connection with her. Many instances have been 
given in earlier chapters. Great Britain had a bitter 
experience of the consequences to be expected from 
straining the allegiance of a great offshoot to the break- 
ing point when the American settlers threw off her 
allegiance in the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
Many troubles were hers afterwards in Canada, in 
Australasia, and particularly in South Africa. The 
impossibility of controlling distant communities of her 



240 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

own race and ideas, without a share in those repre- 
sentative institutions so dear to the British heart; 
the equal impossibiHty of retaining them within the 
Empire if they should wish to sever themselves from it, 
were impressed upon British statesmen of the Victorian 
era. It was rather in weariness than with a true vision 
of the future that the white communities of Greater 
Britain were endowed with the rights of responsible 
government. The way was paved for their separation 
when they were strong enough to stand alone. They 
were made free to develop along their own lines. No- 
thing but "the golden link of the Crown" remained, 
to outward observance, to preserve their unity with the 
Mother Country. It was an experiment which no 
conscious Empire builder would have dared to try. But 
the invisible forces were to prove stronger than the 
visible. Common thought, common speech, common 
history and traditions are the first of these. Others are, 
credit and the Navy. To call a fleet of battleships 
an "invisible force" seems, at first sight, absurd. 
But, in the literal sense, the Navy, except for a few 
ships, generally of inferior force, has been invisible to 
the peoples of the Dominions. It has acted from far 
away, and it unquestionably took the Canadian, Aus- 
traUan, and New Zealander a long time to realise that, 
if the merchant ships coming into his ports, in a huge 
majority, wore the Red Ensign of Britain; if he was free 
to develop the riches of his land without keeping sword 
and buckler, as it were, at the end of the furrow, it was 
due to "those far-distant, storm-beaten ships," on 
which he never looked, and for which he was not asked 
to pay a single penny. The kings of the earth take 
tribute from their subjects; but his Motherland gives 
and does not take. 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 241 

That the Imperial idea first awoke in the White 
Empire oversea through sea power admits of no doubt. 
In the early eighties of last century, the Australasian 
Dominions first agreed to make a voluntary contribu- 
tion to the cost of the Navy in return for the permanent 
retention of some light cruisers upon the station. As a 
result of the enthusiasm stirred by the two Jubilees of 
Queen Victoria, the Cape presented the armoured 
cruiser Good Hope to the Navy, on the motion of a 
Dutchman, Jan Hofmeyr, while Natal made an annual 
gift of coal, and Newfoundland raised a Naval Reserve 
from among her fishermen. With the growth of the 
German menace and the rise of the navy of Japan, the 
movement took on wider dimensions. New Zealand 
gave a battle cruiser to the Navy, while the Common- 
wealth of Australia laid the foundations of a naval 
unit of its own. Canada proved her desire to join in 
the union for defence, but action was postponed owing 
to internal difficulties. Her Prime Minister, Sir Robert 
Borden, however, was the first to utter a demand for 
closer political union with the Mother Country and 
the Sister Dominions. "Call us to your councils" are 
words which will be heard more insistently when the 
struggle in which the Dominions have borne so noble a 
part has come to an end. 

Military aid was first given in a British campaign by 
the New South Wales contingent, a small body of cav- 
alry which joined the British force at Suakim in 1885. 
When the war with the Boer Republics broke out, 
offers of aid came, and were accepted, from all the White 
Dominions. What, to the monarchies of Europe, 
presented itself as a war of aggression and oppression 
was seen by the citizens of the free communities of our 
family to be a war for freedom. Their sons came 
16 



242 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

forward with an enthusiasm which no temporary 
reverses could check. The sea power of Britain 
collected them from all the ends of the earth. Nor was 
that all. The echo of the last shot had hardly died 
away before the South African peoples themselves 
were first entrusted with the rights of self-government, 
and were then united into one State in which Boer 
and Briton shared equal rights, the Dutch majority, 
under the leadership of the general who had led the 
Boer armies against us, wielding the government 
of the country behind the shield of the British 
Navy. Free development of their national life, a 
free share in all the benefits which the mighty mari- 
time resources of Great Britain could give them, and 
free protection from all outside aggression were bene- 
fits apparent to the naturally shrewd mind of the 
Boer. On the other hand, all the experiences of our 
history and all the forces of the national character have 
gone to build up the Union of South Africa, and to bring 
about the almost miraculous result that two generals 
who, in 1900, were waging a not unsuccessful war 
against the British Empire, between 1914 and 1916 
commanded British armies in two victorious campaigns. 
Outside the White Dominions, the possessions of 
the Honourable East India Company grew into the 
Empire of India. What Alexander and all succeeding 
conquerors failed to do by way of the land. Great Brit- 
ain accomplished by way of the sea. Our title to India 
has never been disputed since Napoleon fell; no Power 
has ever shaken our position. Foreign rival and native 
malcontent has learned alike that England is nearer to 
India than Petrograd or Berlin; even than Merv, or, 
to employ a paradox, Delhi itself. The foreign policy 
of Britain for the last hundred years has been based 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 243 

almost entirely upon considerations which touched the 
road to India. The benefits of our rule there to our- 
selves have often been questioned by the materialistic 
school of thought ; the benefits of our rule to the native 
population have never been seriously called in question 
by any one whose opinion counted. India has repaid 
the debt by the aid given by her fine regiments on 
the battlefields of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The place 
of this great empire within the Empire, possessing, as it 
does, a civilisation and a culture of its own — perhaps one 
should rather say several varieties of civilisation and 
culture — and with a history extending beyond that of 
any of the Powers of Europe, is a question which will 
have to be settled after the war, and which may afford 
the most crucial test which the British race has ever 
undergone of that capacity for leadership which it has 
hitherto so strikingly exhibited. 

With the peoples of India may be ranked the Malays, 
and such of the Arab and Chinese races as are under our 
rule. The gift of the battleship Malaya by the Rajas of 
the Federated Malay States proved that this maritime 
race of the East has a grasp of the essential meaning of 
sea power. These peoples are not to be ranked with 
"the heathen in his bHndness. " Of the so-called "sav- 
age" races of mankind, the Ocean Empire has many 
under its flag, the blacks of Africa, the Dyaks of Bor- 
neo, the Papuans, and the inhabitants of countless 
islands. Starting with trading stations on the coasts, in 
the great majority of cases, and with a history of early 
contact of which we have little reason to be proud, 
all the good which is in the British nature has asserted 
itself in its further dealings with native races, and has 
exerted itself mainly by means of the long arm of the 
Navy. The overthrow of dark and bloody tyrannies 



244 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

like those of the Khalifa in the Soudan and King 
Prempeh in West Africa, and the substitution of a just 
rule for theirs, were works which we can fearlessly bring 
to the test of their fruits, without heeding the charges of 
rapacity and hypocrisy hurled at us by people whose 
record in dealing with the backward races of the world 
will not bear a similar test. It may be confidently 
asserted that, in all such cases, we have applied unflinch- 
ingly, so far as they are applicable, the principles on 
which our own laws and government are founded, even 
to the hurt of our own material interests. 

Here, too, great questions face us in the future, 
especially in the lands where white settlers live in 
contact with native races. They are questions which 
will only be solved if we keep within us a very real and 
high sense of a Divine mission, laid upon the race by 
"Him Who set His Briton in blown seas and storming 
showers." This Une of thought has been indicated 
before, but here it must be developed in greater detail, if 
the reader is to grasp the point of view from which 
the writer regards the Empire and the history which has 
gone to its making: if the high purpose for which sea 
power and the heritage it has brought has been entrusted 
to us by Him who sitteth above the water-floods is to 
be fully grasped. Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans 
flowed into our islands ere the keepers of the gates came 
to understand the principles on which an island is 
made safe from conquest. Then the gates were shut, 
and, with many a struggle, the various races fused and 
became one people, with very definite characteristics, 
contributed by each of the elements. They fought 
among themselves for principles of liberty and law, 
and they evolved an ordered freedom, foundations of 
equity and justice, and a temperate polity which, if it is 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 245 

no more perfect than any other human contrivance, is 
yet far in advance of anything existing in the world, 
save that which is borrowed from itself. In the sphere 
of religion, no less than in that of law and politics, 
the Church of England, at once national and catholic, 
peculiar to ourselves, is an instrument unmatched for 
spreading an ordered Christianity among the peoples 
who dwell under the flag of Britain. While the British 
tempecament guarantees freedom for all forms of wor- 
ship, the Church of England is ready with the organi- 
sation which supplies the ordinances of Christianity 
wherever Britons settle, or those who dwell in the 
shadow of death, fast-bound in misery and iron, crave 
for the light of the Gospel. All this was forged and 
formed behind the shield of sea power, and, by sea 
power, has been carried to the ends of the earth. The 
United States, no less than the Dominions of the 
British Crown, stand on the foundation of Magna 
Carta and the Petition of Right. Rudyard Kipling 
has summed up in four lines the ideal on which the 
Empire rests : 

Keep ye the Law! Be swift to all obedience, 

Cleanse the land from evil, drive the road and bridge the 

ford. 
Render safe to each his own, that he reap where he hath 

sown. 
By the peace among our peoples, let men know we serve the 

Lord! 

Such an ideal of empire can never contemplate keep- 
ing any body of its subjects in a condition of permanent 
inferiority. We loosed the slave, and, thereby, we 
endowed the coloured skin with the same rights of 
humanity as the white. There is no need to press 



246 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

theory to its extreme. The love of logical symmetry, 
so destructive of success in the task of governing 
and humanising the backward peoples among other 
nations, has never been a distinguishing fault of the 
British character. Rough-and-ready solutions become 
the habit of those who occupy their business in great 
waters, and are the pioneqrs in strange lands: the 
adaptation of means to ends. But there are native 
races under our rule which are attaining to a high degree 
of education and a European standard of life. Already 
we open the doors of the arts and sciences freely to 
individuals among these. In process of time it 
must become a question of granting to whole races 
equal rights of citizenship. How is that question to be 
faced? The attitude of the white inhabitants of the 
Dominions towards the Indians before the war was a 
matter of grave disquiet to those who thought seriously 
on Imperial questions. The events of the past three 
years have probably paved the way for a solution of 
that question. But how are we to prepare for the day 
when Basuto, Kaffir, and Zulu shall claim what the 
Maori already possesses, the full rights of British 
citizenship ? 

The answer depends on the view we take of the 
Empire. On the "hen-and-chicken" theory, no solu- 
tion can be found. But if the advice of Sir Robert 
Borden be followed and the Dominions be called to our 
coimcils; if the inhabitants of Canada, Australia, New 
Zealand, and South Africa come to regard themselves 
as parts of an organic whole, sharing with us the responsi- 
bility for the dark lands of the Empire; if, in short, the 
whole meaning of the Ocean Empire become plain, 
then a way may be found for the application of the 
British ideal, suitably modified, to the whole family of 



THE RESTORER OF PATHS 247 

nations which dwells under the British flag. The 
solution is not to be looked for in a crude equality of 
conditions promiscuously applied. The white people 
of the Dominions have ample justification, social and 
economic, for their objections to unrestricted immi- 
gration. The mistakes of the French in dealing with 
Hayti and of the United States in dealing with the 
emancipated slaves must be avoided in the interest of 
white and coloured alike. No general solution of the 
thousand varying questions involved will be even 
suggested here. But it is strongly urged that the first 
step toward a solution is to be found in the conception of 
an organic realm, knit together by sea power, in which 
the blood-brotherhood of Britons shoulder a joint 
responsibility for the welfare of the coloured races 
which sea power has committed to their charge. 



CHAPTER XI 



THE CHALLENGE 



The introduction of steam and steel shipbmlding 
gave all nation^ a fair start in a renewed struggle for sea 
power. But the advantages, natural or acquired, of 
Great Britain soon enabled her to distance her com- 
petitors more signally than ever. These advantages 
consisted (i) in geographical position, (2) in the char- 
acter of her people, (3) in the colonies and possessions 
she had acquired abroad, with their commodious ports, 
(4) the possession of the best kind of coal for maritime 
purposes, and the proximity of coal and iron deposits to 
her rivers and estuaries, and (5) her supremacy in 
manufactures, combined with the necessity of fetching 
both food and raw material from abroad for her indus- 
trial population, in exchange for the products of her 
looms and workshops. The Continent, beaten down 
by war, had to depend on her both as provider and 
carrier. The United States alone might have chal- 
lenged her position successfully; but the United States 
was as yet undeveloped, and was compelled to be for 
many years a borrowing nation. The Civil War 
destroyed the American mercantile marine, and the 
great spurt of development which followed constrained 
the Americans to pay the interest of their loans to a 
large extent in the freights earned by British ships. 

248 



THE CHALLENGE 249 

By a wise, if undesigned, policy, moreover. Great 
Britain, so far from being jealous of the maritime expan- 
sion of other nations, showed herself ready to build both 
warships and merchantmen to their order. Thus, for 
years, she alone developed the new industry of steel 
shipbuilding and was able to turn out tonnage at a 
figure which no other country approached for cheapness. 
On the Clyde, the Tyne, the Mersey, the Thames, and 
in many other places, great shipbuilding establishments 
appeared, which for sixty years at least no other nation 
attempted to rival. The craze for excessive cheapness 
brought drawbacks in maritime affairs as well as in 
others. The mercantile seamen were ill-paid and ill- 
fed, and an undue number of foreigners, both European 
and Lascar, were employed. There were serious fears, 
which the war has, happily, expelled to a large extent, 
that the old breed of seamen which had given to the 
British their supremacy at sea might become extinct. 
On the other hand, no nation gave more heed to the 
safety of its sailors at sea, and, wherever the benefits of 
sea power are recognised the name of Samuel PlimsoU 
must be had in honour. 

It was not, perhaps, unnatural that a service which 
had won so high a position by the efficiency of its 
personnel under the conditions of masts and sails should 
prove itself reluctant, as did the Royal Navy of Britain, 
to change its motive power for steam. Long after the 
maritime engine had superseded the wind as prime 
mover in all ships of war, masts and sails were retained 
in British ships lest the British bluejacket should lose 
his seamanlike qualities. Only within the last ten years 
has the engineer been accorded his rightful place among 
the officers of the ship. During the preceding period, 
the Navy was organised with little regard for strategical 



250 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

considerations. Its dispositions were, in the main, 
based upon the old rivalry with France, and its later 
duty of supplying the world's poHce of the seas. How a 
change was brought about, and the Navy made ready 
and disposed to meet a new challenge will be told 
hereafter. One great and beneficial change, at any 
rate, marked the transition period. The men were 
enlisted for continuous service, and the calling of a 
man-of-warsman at last became a regular profession. 
The change was rendered necessary by the much greater 
specialisation required and the increasing difference 
between men-of-war and merchantmen. Despite the 
lack of organisation and training in the Navy as an 
engine of war, however, sea power, in the wider mean- 
ing of the term, was never more completely exercised 
by any country than by Great Britain during the years 
of maritime peace and commercial expansion. 

The steam-driven, armour-clad ship, with her turret 
guns and ram, owed her origin to the genius of the 
French, and, afterwards, of the Americans. The ar- 
moured batteries employed against Kinburn led to the 
construction of La Gloire, a wooden frigate with four- 
inch iron plates on her sides, designed by Dupuy de 
Lome. We followed quickly with the Warrior, which 
was built of iron and plated. Then the deeds of the 
Confederate ram, Merrimac, and the Federal turret- 
ship. Monitor, in the American Civil War turned naval 
thought in a new direction as to tactics, or, rather, 
revived a very old school of tactics. Steam and the 
ram, it was argued, had restored the conditions of the 
oared galley. The tactics of Salamis, the ^gatian 
Islands, and Lepanto were once more studied. When 
the Italian flagship, Re d'ltalia, was sunk at the battle 
of Lissa by the impact of a wooden ship of greatly 



THE CHALLENGE 251 

inferior force, these theories were greatly strengthened. 
The day of the line and of broadside fighting, it seemed, 
was at an end. Line abreast, and a melee in which the 
ram would decide the issue, after the enemy ship had 
been more or less wrecked by a heavy bow-fire, became 
the conception of a naval fight. Most nations set to 
work to build ships which should be as unlike ships as 
possible. 

Had this view finally triumphed, the day of the 
soldier on shipboard might have returned, and the 
priceless heritage which we possess in our stored sea- 
sense might have been rendered of no avail. But the 
British Navy, though it, to some extent, bowed to the 
prevailing opinion, never entirely surrendered itself to 
it. The loss of the Captain was the first rude shock. It 
was realised that the British must be a sea-keeping 
Ne^y, and that weatherliness was of primary impor- 
tance. Then the coming of the automobile torpedo and 
the swift torpedo-boat showed that the defence of big 
ships against such attacks could not be entrusted en- 
tirely to the heavy guns. Finally, the catastrophe to 
the Victoria and, especially, the fact that the Camper- 
down, which rammed her, nearly shared her fate, proved 
that the ram is a two-edged weapon on which supreme 
reliance could not be placed. The pendulum swung 
in the other direction, and action in close formed 
line-ahead, with a tremendous volume of quick-fire to 
shatter the enemy's upper-works and destroy or demoral- 
ise his men, became the accepted theory of those who 
held to the battleship as the arbiter of battle. 

At the same time, another school of thought, which 
described itself as the jeune ecole, was gaining weight in 
France, under the leadership of Admiral Aube. Accord- 
ing to its adherents, the battleship had seen her day. 



252 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Swarms of torpedo-boats would forbid the use of the 
sea to her, and a multitude of fast commerce-destroyers 
would cut the communications of the Power which 
rashly trusted to the command of the sea for its safety. 
The stored naval wisdom of the British Admiralty 
forbade assent to such views, plausible as they might 
seem. The development of the torpedo-boat destroyer 
showed the first hope to be illusory, while the second 
could only be realised if the ports were left clear of 
watching squadrons. Besides, whatever success might 
be achieved in denying the use of the sea to the enemy, 
the theory of the jeune ecole gave no promise of securing 
the use of the sea for itself. The British Admiralty 
only led the opinion of the world, holding that the 
strategy which had been proved and consecrated by 
naval history from the earliest times remained unaltered 
by mere mechanical developments. The French Navy 
alone, with its flair for new ideas and mechanical 
invention, was caught by the new conception, greatly 
to its temporary disadvantage. The effect produced 
by the development of the submarine will be best 
discussed in another place. 

Such, in brief, were the changes wrought on the 
fighting navies of the world upon the technical side by 
the introduction of steam propulsion, steel shipbuilding, 
armour plating, the shell gun, the automobile torpedo, 
and other like developments. In maritime affairs 
generally, the effect of the changes was to render vessels 
independent of the winds, but dependent on fuel supply 
and on the ports where fuel could be obtained. The 
ocean routes became shorter, but at the same time, 
speaking generally, narrower. The carrying capacity 
of ships also increased enormously. Thus there came 
about, and especially since the introduction of wireless 



THE CHALLENGE 253 

telegraphy, a greater concentration of traffic, which 
made ocean travel and conveyance more secure, at any 
rate in time of peace. Merchant ships came to be 
divided into "liners," or ships which voyage between 
fixed points, and "tramps" which roam the world, pick- 
ing up cargo where it is to be found, or are hired on 
charter by merchants for particular purposes. Liners, 
of course, are the descendants of the old East Indiamen, 
and of the "English galleon" which sailed once a 
year from Venice. 

Up to 1890, the world was content to increase its 
merchant traffic on the ocean without giving much heed 
to the foundations on which sea power rests, or the 
principles by which it is defended. The ancient 
rivalry between France and Britain prompted the 
maintenance of naval competition, mainly in types 
and theories, between the two countries. There were 
periodical "scares" in this country, notably at the 
time of the Penjeh crisis in 1885, which led to the series 
of articles called "The Truth about the Navy," pro- 
moted by Captain Fisher, now Lord Fisher of Kilver- 
stone, and published in the Pall Mall Gazette, by Mr. 
W. T. Stead, which led to the Naval Defence Act of 
1889. Italy laid the foundations of her navy, but on 
principles which offered no serious prospect of the 
adequate defence of her peninsular position and ex- 
tended coast-line. The United States began to build 
battleships, after a period of complete paralysis, but, in 
the main, rather because the American Government had 
money to spare than on any intelligible theory of 
defence. Minor states, such as the South American 
republics, China and Japan (not yet a first-class 
Power), ordered ships, Elswick cruisers for the most 
part, which afforded the world almost the earliest 



254 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

examples of sea fighting in the days of steam and the 
torpedo. The failure of the French Navy to accompUsh 
anything visible to the naked eye in 1870 and of the 
Turks to contest the command of the Black Sea with 
Russia in 1877 caused sea power to be held in light 
estimation in comparison with land power, and the 
pervading influence of the British Navy in the Mediter- 
ranean during this period was missed, so far as the 
general public was concerned. To have a navy was 
regarded, one might say, rather as a sign of substance, 
like keeping a carriage. But as to the use to which that 
navy should be put, the prevailing ideas were of the 
mistiest. 

In 1890, however, an event occurred which had the 
most powerful influence on the course of events. It was 
no more than the publication of a book, and a book, 
moreover, which contained little which was absolutely 
new. Captain A. T. Mahan, an officer of the American 
Navy, and professor at the Naval College of Annapolis, 
published the results of his reflections while he was 
preparing his lectures under the title of The Influence 
of Sea Power upon History. He owed much of the 
germ of his argument to two English writers. Sir John 
Knox Laughton and Admiral Colomb. But the facts 
were so freshly and powerfully presented that he seemed 
the prophet of a new school. He showed that sea 
power consists not alone in the military navy, but 
in the whole maritime industries and aptitudes of a 
nation, based on geographical position, internal eco- 
nomic conditions, the national character, and the nature 
of the government. He went on to prove, by a wealth 
of example that sea power is silent and far-reaching in its 
operation, affecting the national well-being in peace and 
the national strength for war in many directions which 



THE CHALLENGE 255 

do not appear from superficial study. His keen and 
penetrating analysis showed the action of this force 
in ways unsuspected by the reader of history as it is 
commonly written, from the Punic Wars down to the 
outbreak of the French Revolution. This book was 
followed by The Influence of Sea Power upon the French 
Revolution and Empire, The Influence of Sea Power upon 
the War of 1812, The Life of Nelson: the Embodiment of 
British Sea Power, and several others. Mahan died 
in the early part of 19 15, just when his theories were 
being put to the sharp test of a well-nigh universal 
war, and before his own country had taken the step 
which he, of all men, would most heartily have approved, 
of lending her might to maintain the Freedom of the 
Seas. His work had an effect which he himself can 
hardly have foreseen. 

Mahan's first object was to stir up public opinion in 
his own country to an effort to recover the maritime 
position which had been lost in consequence of the 
Civil War and the great internal development of the 
United States. So far as the war navy was concerned, 
he was successful. The war with Spain in 1898 
emphasised and reinforced his teachings. But no 
eloquence of writing and argument could fight against 
the conditions which he himself laid down as essential, 
to maritime, as opposed to merely naval, expansion, 
and, until the great war gave the United States the 
opportunity to recover that which they lost in war, he 
fought in vain against economic forces. How matters 
will be hereafter, it is too early to foresee. 

How far Mahan was prophet and how far only 
herald is hard to determine. With the increasing 
contraction of the world, the appropriation of its waste 
space, the growth of its population, and the entry of 



256 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

new peoples into the comity of nations, it is probable 
that the wind was already blowing in the direction of 
maritime expansion and new naval rivalries. In the 
case of Japan, for instance, an island state, the develop- 
ment of sea power was inevitable, once her self-imposed 
isolation came to an end. It is hardly likely that 
the Japanese were consciously moved by the teachings 
of Mahan. Indeed, their maritime expansion began 
before his day. But, in another direction, and that, 
for the moment, the most important of all, his influence 
was direct. Among the warmest admirers of his writ- 
ings is the German Emperor, who found his vague 
aspirations crystallised on his pages. Wilhelm II. 
came to the imperial throne two years before The 
Influence of Sea Power upon History appeared. As the 
grandson of Queen Victoria, he had paid many visits 
during his boyhood's years to England, and had spent 
considerable time in Portsmouth Dockyard and on 
board British ships. These early impressions left 
their mark upon him. He became an ardent admirer 
of the British Navy and a worshipper of Nelson. He 
worshipped also the deeds of his ancestor, Frederick the 
Great, and of his grandfather, the old Kaiser of the 
Franco-German War. The opportunity to expand 
his realm on the Continent was exhausted. He looked 
east and he looked west. His Germans had left 
their country by the hundred thousand, and were settled 
under foreign flags. The growing manufactures, the 
product of German skill, science, and industry, were 
carried in foreign ships. Germany appeared to be what 
List had called her, "the step-child of Providence." 
Reflecting on all this, the teaching of Mahan came to 
him as a gospel newly revealed, and the second word 
of his trilogy was spoken, "Our future lies upon the 



THE CHALLENGE 257 

water. " But the British Islands are an immovable 
barrier across the only path. While Britain remained 
supreme at sea, any empire which Germany could found 
across the ocean must be held in fee of her. Very well, 
then, "The trident must be in our fist. " Here was the 
new vision of world power, ever present to the mind of 
the imperial dreamer, whether he were preaching his 
strange mixed doctrine of despotism and mystic religion 
in Hamburg or Kiel, or seeing visions on the Mount of 
Olives, wrapped in the cloak of a Crusader. Perhaps 
he himself had no hatred for the people of his mother's 
land. But he and his school imbued his people with the 
latent hatred which has flamed up so fiercely. The 
overthrow of Great Britain became the goal of pan- 
Germanism. It was the only possible goal for which 
it was worth while to strive. 

German maritime expansion was carried out on the 
lines laid down by Colbert in the France of the late 
seventeenth century, but much more persistently and 
scientifically applied. Bismarck started the Colonial 
Empire of Germany, with his tongue in his cheek. 
Wilhelm II. made that rather unprofitable asset the 
starting point of his naval aims. Somewhat before 
his time, Germany having acquired a considerable grip 
on the commerce of the East, liners of the Nord- 
deutscher Lloyd, resplendent with much gold and plate 
glass, were plying to China: subsidised vessels which 
attracted a certain amount of custom from English 
people anxious to get out or home more cheaply than 
was possible by P. and O. Those who preferred to com- 
bine more comfort and less glitter with a cheap fare, 
however, preferred the Messageries Maritimes. The 
Kaiser expanded the movement, with the aid of German 
shipowners and financiers, among whom the most 
17 



258 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

conspicuous was the Jew, Herr Ballin, and soon great 
vessels of the Hamburg-Amerika Hne were steaming 
into Southampton Water, with their bands blaring 
''Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles." A sensation 
was caused in Britain when one of these obtained the 
"blue riband of the Atlantic," and a rather senseless 
competition in speed, size, and luxury ensued, which 
was chiefly useful as an advertisement of the German 
shipbuilding yards. A more serious matter, really, for 
our maritime position was the institution of subsidised 
lines running to East Africa and AustraHa. By 19 14, 
Germany owned the second largest mercantile marine 
in the world, though her steam tonnage was still only 
a fourth of that owned by the British Empire. What 
was formidable about German competition was the 
direction of all the resources of the State, both at home 
and abroad, to the one end. The ownership of the 
railways by the State, and the admirable system of 
internal waterways were powerful aids. Hamburg 
outstripped London and became the greatest entrepot 
in the world. Moreover, with all the efforts made to 
strengthen the maritime position of Germany, agri- 
culture was never allowed to languish, and the German 
people went into the war almost self-supporting, so far 
as foodstuffs are concerned. 

A military navy was obviously necessary to support 
and defend this growing volume of sea-borne trade: at 
least, so the German people were told, when it was 
desired to obtain credits for naval expansion. They 
were not told, however, that a military navy could only 
protect trade adequately if it were supreme. The 
unthinking were easily caught and cozened into lending 
themselves to the ambitious schemes of the Emperor 
and his pan-German clique. The Deutsche Flotten- 



THE CHALLENGE 259 

verein, established on the lines of the English Navy 
League, and enjoying Royal and Imperial patronage, 
soon numbered millions of members. Whatever was 
intended, there was only one end possible. Prior to 
1888, the German Navy hardly had an existence. Ten 
years more passed before the country and the Reichstag 
could be brought to the proper frame of mind to con- 
template naval expansion. But, in January, 1897, 
Admiral Tirpitz succeeded Admiral von Hollman as 
Secretary of the Imperial Navy Office. He proved 
himself a statesman as well as a remarkably able sailor. 
He adopted the usual German methods of Press- 
manipulation and cajoled the Reichstag into resigning 
all real power over the details of navy expenditure. In 
1898, he was able to obtain the first of the famous 
German Navy Acts, that known as the Sexennate, 
which provided for the creation of a fleet of certain 
fixed proportions within a period of six years. Battle- 
ships were to be automatically replaced at the end of 
twenty-five years from the voting of the first instal- 
ment for their construction, and large cruisers at the 
end of twenty years. These periods were reduced 
by a subsequent Act to twenty and fifteen years re- 
spectively. By this means it became possible to re- 
place a miserable little coast-defence vessel, like the 
Siegfried, of about 4000 tons, by a great Dreadnought 
of 22,000 tons, and a 3000-ton light cruiser by a 
battle-cruiser like the Hindenhurg. Even before the 
Act of 1898 came into full operation, it was replaced 
by the Act of 1900, which nearly doubled the proposed 
number of ships. The Bundesrat incident, mentioned 
above, was made the occasion for obtaining this ex- 
tension. The famous preamble to the Statute of 1898 
runs as follows : 



26o SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

To protect Germany's sea-trade and colonies, in the 
existing circumstances there is only one means: Germany 
must have a battle-fleet so strong that, even for the adver- 
sary with the greatest sea power, a war against it would 
involve such dangers as to imperil his position in the 
world. 

For this purpose, it is not absolutely necessary that 
the German battle-fleet should be as strong as that of 
the greatest naval Power, because a great naval Power 
will not, as a rule, be in a position to concentrate all his 
striking forces against us. But even if it should succeed 
in meeting us with considerable superiority, the defeat of 
a strong German fleet would so substantially weaken the 
enemy that, in spite of a victory he might have obtained, 
his own position in the world would no longer be secured 
by an adequate fleet. 

The reasoning is identical with that of Nelson when 
he wrote, ' ' I am no conjurer, but this I ventured with- 
out any fear, that, if Calder (with eighteen ships) got 
fairly alongside their twenty-eight sail, by the time the 
enemy had beaten our fleet soundly, they would do us 
no harm this year. ' ' The argument is a perfectly sound 
one, as Nelson applied it; but von Tirpitz made the 
radical mistake of supposing that the nation which has 
always realised the supreme importance of defeating 
decisively the immediate enemy could be diverted from 
that policy by the fear of ulterior consequences else- 
where. In the German view, the world is composed of 
nations who are always on the look-out to pounce on 
the weak, regardless of right or wrong, as opportunity 
offers, as wolves will tear to pieces a wounded member 
of the pack. 

That there should be no mistake as to the meaning 
of this preamble, despite the almost decent restraint of 



THE CHALLENGE 261 

its language, it was interpreted for the Gennan people 
by Admiral von der Goltz. This officer frankly dis- 
cussed the chance of a war with Great Britain, ending 
with the declaration that, with the additions proposed, 
the German fleet would be in a position to measure its 
strength with the ordinary British forces in home 
waters, and adding : 

It should not be forgotten that the question of numbers 
is far less important on sea than on land. Numerical inferi- 
ority can be compensated by efficiency, by excellency 
of material, by the efficiency and discipline of the men. 
Careful preparation, permitting rapid mobilisation, can 
ensure a momentary superiority. 

These words have a most important bearing on the 
sequel. The hope was no vain one, as matters stood in 
1900. 

The Reichstag compelled the dropping of five large 
and five small cruisers from von Tirpitz's programme of 
1900, but these were restored in 1906. Two years later 
a further Act was passed, shortening the statutory age 
of ships, and, in 19 12, the final Act, providing for three 
additional battleships, and increasing largely the force 
to be kept in permanent commission, in accordance with 
von der Goltz 's demand for speedy mobilisation. In 
fourteen years, Germany sprang from the position of 
an insignificant naval Power, superior only to Austria- 
Hungary among the greater nations of Europe, to the 
second place in the world. Instead of a squadron of 
four coast defence vessels, incapable of keeping the sea 
for many days, she disposed of four squadrons of eight 
battleships each, two of them composed of Dread- 
noughts, with four older battleships in reserve; eight 
large armoured cruisers, of which five were battle- 



262 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

cruisers, with two in reserve, and the nucleus of a strong 
squadron of cruisers for foreign service, of which the 
most noteworthy were the Goeben, Scharnhorst, and 
Gneisenau. Nor does the number of ships of which 
she disposed in 19 14 give the full measure of her increase 
in naval strength. After many years' toil, the works at 
Wilhelmshaven, acquired from Oldenburg by Prussia in 
1852, were completed, and her short-cut from the Baltic 
to the North Sea secured by the widening and deepening 
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, necessitated by the open- 
ing of the Dreadnought era. The Kaiser and his 
Ministers are, at least, entitled to this credit : that they 
have spared neither toil nor treasure in their attempt 
to secure the mastery of the world by land and sea. 

During the years of German naval expansion, events 
of equal significance were taking place on the other side 
of the globe. The growth of the Japanese Navy, as has 
been pointed out, is a perfectly natural one. The 
Japanese people have all the qualities, and their native 
land all the advantages and needs which make for sea 
power. Lying off the mainland of Asia, as the British 
Islands lie off the mainland of Europe, the geographical 
position of the Japanese Islands confers the same sort of 
control over the Pacific and Indian Oceans, so far as 
the mainland is concerned, as we exercise over the 
communications of Germany, Holland, Scandinavia, and 
Northern Russia with the Atlantic and Mediterranean. 
There is, however, this important difference; that 
whereas the Continent of Europe is occupied by power- 
ful organised States, standing, roughly, on the same 
level of civilisation and enterprise as we, Japan is con- 
fronted with the inchoate mass of China, the prey of 
European ambitions, and with the lower races of Korea 
and Manchuria. Under no circumstances should we 



THE CHALLENGE 263 

seek possessions on the Continent of Europe. The 
need to keep the conquering white race out of Eastern 
Asia, so far as she may, has compelled Japan to seek 
territory on the mainland. Japan emerged from a 
state of feudal isolation during the sixties of last cen- 
tury. The necessity for a navy was apparent to her 
statesmen, and she called upon Great Britain for aid. 
The late Sir Archibald Douglas was appointed head of 
the Naval Mission to Japan, and he was the father of 
the navy which fought the battles of the Yalu and Tsu- 
shima, while Admiral Togo, the victor in the latter 
engagement, received his education on board the Wor- 
cester, the training ship for cadets for the British mer- 
cantile marine. 

The war with China, in 1894, ^^s, essentially a war 
of prestige. China claimed a suzerainty over Korea 
which Japan would not admit. An attempt to send 
reinforcements by sea was met by the sinking of the 
transport conveying them by a torpedo fired from the 
Naniwa, under the command of Captain Togo, as he 
then was. A naval engagement was fought off the 
mouth of the Yalu River in Korea, in which the fast 
Japanese cruisers utterly defeated a Chinese force which 
included two battleships. The Chinese land forces in 
the Peninsula were no less decisively defeated at Ping- 
yang, and the Japanese then set themselves to reduce 
the two great naval strongholds of China, Port Arthur, 
and Wei-hai-wei. Their efforts were successful, and 
the remnant of the Chinese Navy fell into their hands, 
but the intervention of Germany, France, and Russia 
compelled them to restore Port Arthur and Wei-hai-wei, 
the former of which was leased to Russia two years 
later. About the same time, Germany compelled the 
Chinese to lease them the settlement of Kiao-chau, in 



264 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the Shan-tung Peninsula. It must be added that 
Great Britain acquired Wei-hai-wei as an offset to these 
concessions. But no attempt has ever been made to 
turn the place into a great naval fortress, as did the 
Russians at Port Arthur and the Germans at Kiao- 
chau. 

Although the Chinese were defeated, Japan suffered 
a blow to her prestige by the European intervention 
which followed her victory, which she could not endure 
patiently. Europe was treating China as an artichoke 
to be eaten leaf by leaf. Besides the naval stations of 
Hong-Kong and Wei-hai-wei, held by Great Britain, 
Port Arthur held by Russia, and Kiao-chau held by 
Germany, there were settlements and concessions at 
Shanghai, Hankow, and other places, while Europeans 
were under the extra-territorial jurisdiction of their 
Consular Courts. That would not have mattered had 
the Japanese had a similar standing; but not only had 
they no such standing, but Europeans in Japan itself 
enjoyed a similar right. The Japanese were thus 
placed in the category of uncivilised, or semi-civilised 
nations, along with China and Turkey. They owed 
their release from this humiliating position to the 
friendly sympathy of the Sea Power of the West, 
which elevated their Legation to the dignity of an 
Embassy, abandoned its Consular Courts, and eventu- 
ally entered into formal alliance. Other nations were 
compelled to follow the example of Great Britain, so far 
as the first two matters were concerned, and Japan 
entered fully into the comity of Powers. 

She had, none the less, to struggle for breathing- 
space, with the naval Powers of Europe hemming her in, 
if she was to attain to the position to which she aspired, 
and the Russian threat to Korea brought matters to a 



THE CHALLENGE 265 

crisis. The war which followed presents many features 
of interest to the student of sea power, Japan pos- 
sessed six first-class battleships, and as many armoured 
cruisers of a good type, which were reinforced at the 
beginning of the war by the Kasuga and Nisshin, vessels 
which had been built in Italy for the Argentine Republic. 
Russia had six battleships of approximately equal force 
to those of Japan in Port Arthur, with one armoured 
cruiser, while three armoured cruisers were at Vladi- 
vostok. The two Powers were about equal in light 
cruisers, and the Japanese superior in torpedo craft. 
But, whereas the force enumerated composed the whole 
of Japan's naval strength, the Russians had four good 
battleships in the Baltic completed and another com- 
pleting, as well as a considerable force of older 
battleships. They had been for some time drafting 
more ships to the Far East, and it was possible to 
foretell almost to a day when war would break out by 
watching the movements of Russian ships. In point of 
fact, when the seventh Russian battleship reached the 
Suez Canal, the Japanese opened hostilities by a sur- 
prise torpedo attack on Port Arthur. The Kasuga 
and Nisshin, at the same time, were just out of reach 
of molestation. 

Russia depended on the long single line of the Trans- 
Siberian Railway for her communications. The Japan- 
ese had a short and rapid line by sea. Moreover, they 
held the central position, between the two parts of the 
Russian fleet in Port Arthur and Vladivostok. They 
sealed the former port in order to get their armies 
ashore, the one in Korea, the other on the neck of the 
Liao-tung Peninsula, at the head of which Port Arthur 
stands. They watched the Vladivostok ships with a 
division of armoured cruisers. Thus, secure on the sea, 



266 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

they threw themselves across the Russian communi- 
cations with Port Arthur, and soon had the place 
besieged on the land side as well as blockaded by sea. 
They suffered some damage from the Vladivostok 
cruisers, which contrived to slip out in a fog, and sink 
the vessel which was carrying the siege-train for Port 
Arthur. But, except for this, the communications of 
the Japanese were riot interfered with. But the Rus- 
sians made the fatal mistake of treating their squad- 
ron as a part of the armament of the fortress. They 
lost one battleship by a mine explosion, but the Japan- 
ese lost two, and the latter had nothing in reserve, 
while the Russians had the whole Baltic Fleet. If their 
admirals had remembered the saying of Nelson recorded 
above, and had engaged their enemy resolutely in a fleet 
action, it is more than likely that the Baltic Fleet would 
have restored the local command of the sea to Russia, 
and that Port Arthur would have been saved. As it 
was, after one feeble effort to escape to Vladivostok on 
August 10, 1904, in which they lost their battleship, the 
Tsessarevitch, which was interned at Shanghai for the 
rest of the war, the Russian fleet tamely awaited de- 
struction in the harbour, and, when the place was 
surrendered early in January, 1905, fell into the hands 
of the Japanese. 

By that time the Baltic Fleet, under Admiral Rojdest- 
vensky, was on its way out. But the purpose of 
its mission was gone. It was the laughing-stock of the 
world; but the laughter was ill-timed. Rojdestvensky, 
a good officer, really performed a remarkable feat in 
getting his heterogeneous, ill-found, ill-manned fleet 
to the end of its long voyage in any sort of fighting 
trim. He had not a single base on the way, and had to 
coal in ill-protected roadsteads. Every place he passed 



THE CHALLENGE 267 

sent news of his passing ; the French, although in alliance 
with Russia, had "paired" with Great Britain, the Ally 
of Japan, to substitute benevolent neutrality for active 
participation in the struggle, and Rojdestvensky got 
sympathy, but little assistance, from the French posses- 
sions he passed on his way. Japanese cruisers shadowed 
him from Madagascar onwards, but the main fleet of 
his enemy awaited him in the Straits of Tsu-shima, in 
confidence that, from that central position, it would be 
able to intercept him, whether he took the direct route 
or attempted to reach Vladivostok by way of the Tsu- 
garu Strait between Nippon and Yezo. His ships, 
having left their auxiliaries off the Chinese coast, were 
weighed down by deck loads of coal and supplies till 
the upper edges of their armour belts were submerged. 
No fleet was ever in a worse condition to face a decisive 
action. 

Togo, on the other hand, had only four battleships 
to oppose to an equal niimber of first-class vessels and 
several of more ancient date possessed by his enemy. 
Moreover, his guns were worn with his ceaseless service 
off Port Arthur, and he had no time to change them. 
But his war-hardened crews and his nearness to his 
bases of supply gave him an immense advantage over his 
enemy. On the morning of May 28th, he received in- 
formation of the approach of his enemy. In probably 
conscious imitation of Nelson's immortal signal before 
Trafalgar, he encouraged his men with the words, 
"The fate of the Empire depends on this day's event. 
Do your duty, every one of you." The sea was en- 
veloped in a patchy fog, out of which the Japanese ships 
suddenly loomed across the bows of their enemy, before 
the latter could form his line of battle. Togo engaged 
the head of the enemy's line with his battleship division, 



268 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

to which the armoured cruisers Kasuga andNisshin 
were attached, while Kamimura, with the rest of the 
armoured cruisers, attacked the rear. The Russian 
battleship Oslyabia was sunk almost at the first salvoes. 
The rest of the fleet succeeded in forming some sort of 
line-ahead, but their formation was almost immediately 
broken up, and the rest of the battle, which lasted for 
the best part of two days, was a melee, in which the 
Japanese torpedo-flotillas played a deadly part. Togo 
was forced to close action by the inefficiency of his worn 
guns. He relied on the devastating effect of twelve- 
inch shells, charged with high explosive, on the crews 
and upper works of his opponents. He could not pierce 
the armour-belts of the Russian battleships. Those 
which were sunk by gun-fire owed their fate to their 
overloaded condition. The water pouring in above the 
protective deck caused them to capsize. The older 
ships proved themselves utterly incapable of resisting 
attack. In the end, one modern battleship, the Orel, 
was captured, together with two small coast-defence 
vessels, while the Suvarof, Rojdestvensky's flagship, 
Borodino, Alexander III., and Oslyabia were sunk, 
besides all the rest of the older battleships, the armoured 
cruisers, and all the protected cruisers but two. Rojdest- 
vensky himself, wounded in the head and senseless, was 
removed from his doomed flagship on board a destroyer, 
and captured by the Japanese on the second day. Tsu- 
shima was the most complete "wipe out" in the annals 
of fleet warfare, more complete even than the Nile. No 
Japanese ship was sunk, or even seriously injured, and 
the loss of the victors in men was astonishingly small. 
British opinion was highly incensed at the time 
against the Russians on account of the stupid affair 
of the Dogger Bank, when British fishing boats were 



THE CHALLENGE 269 

fired upon and sunk by the inexperienced and "jumpy" 
Russians, in the absurd belief that there was a Japanese 
torpedo-boat lurking among them in disguise. But 
the infinite pathos of Rojdestvensky's attempt and 
the high qualities of courage and endurance displayed 
by the Russians may now be better appreciated and 
acknowledged. Rojdestvensky saved the honour of 
the Russian flag at a tremendous cost. There was 
nothing else he could do. Had he made Vladivostok in 
safety there was no service to his country he could 
hope to perform. Port Arthur had fallen; the battle 
of Mukden had been fought and lost. The strength 
of Japan was unequal to the total overthrow of Russia; 
but the Court intriguers who had brought the war 
about had thrown and lost. Their blunders were 
irretrievable. Success or failure turned on the com- 
mand of the sea, and sea power once again refused to lend 
itself to the purposes of dynastic and military aggres- 
sion. Its use misunderstood and its elements mis- 
handled, the navy of Russia, greatly superior by the 
book, was brought to ruin by the lesser, but efficiently 
handled, navy of Japan. The campaign, admirably 
conceived by the Japanese General Staff, naval and 
military, is a model of that type of "limited war" to 
which sea power so readily adapts itself. The objects 
of Japan were attained without her being constrained 
to the hopeless task of attempting to crush her giant 
adversary, and this happy result was due to her com- 
mand of the sea. 

Much friction arose between Great Britain and 
Russia, not only on account of the Dogger Bank inci- 
dent, but also on account of the conduct of the Russian 
auxiliary cruisers in capturing and searching British ves- 
sels. How far the Russians exceeded belligerent rights, as 



270 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

we should be inclined to claim them to-day, when we our- 
selves are belligerents, it would take too long to argue. 
Vessels were seized and searched for contraband far out- 
side the zone of hostilities, with an entire absence of proof 
that any part of their cargo had an enemy destination, 
and to this our Government took a strong and successful 
objection. The Russians also set the fatal precedent 
of sinking ships on the plea of "military necessity" — 
that necessity consisting of inability to bring them into 
port — which was afterwards admitted by the Hague 
Conference, and thus gave the Germans a handle for 
their submarine campaign. 

Small as was the effect of the Russian cruiser opera- 
tionsin the war with Japan, those operations gave clear 
evidence of the ability of marauding vessels to keep the 
sea for many weeks together, lost to the ken of humanity 
and subsisting on coal taken either from captured ships 
or from colliers chartered for the purpose. Two vessels 
of the Russian Volunteer Fleet from the Black Sea, 
named for war purposes Dneister and Rion, were thus 
lost to sight for a long period. Meanwhile, the British 
protest against their action was allowed by the Russian 
Government, which sent orders for their recall. It was 
one thing, however, to send orders, and another thing to 
communicate with the ships. For this purpose, the 
Russian Government had to appeal for the good offices 
of the British, and the ships were eventually found, 
and their orders conveyed to them by British cruisers 
on the Cape Station. The reality of the British con- 
trol of the seas could hardly have received plainer 
demonstration. 

The Russo-Japanese War has been dealt with at 
some length because it is, in many respects, a turning- 
point in the history of sea power. The Russian Navy 



THE CHALLENGE 271 

was annihilated. The growing German Navy, by no 
direct act of its own, now had command of the Baltic. 
German ambition, encouraged also by the apparent 
collapse of Russian military power on land, had now, as 
it considered, a free hand to deal with France. A 
period of provocation at once began, in Morocco and 
elsewhere, in the course of which France was subjected 
to dire humiliation. The balance was redressed by the 
formation of the Entente Cordiale between this country 
and her gallant neighbour, to which, by slow degrees, 
Russia became a partner. The grain of mustard seed 
had, indeed, been sown by the wise diplomacy of King 
Edward VII. some years. earlier; but the plant came to 
maturity between 1905 and 191 1. The^ consequences 
on our naval poHcy were immediate. On the very day 
when the Russian fleet sank the fishing boats on the 
Dogger Bank, Admiral Sir John Fisher became First 
Sea Lord, with practically a free hand to carry out 
a gigantic programme of reform, which was to prepare 
the Navy for the great conflict with its new enemy. 
The period of tension which followed the Dogger 
Bank incident showed how faulty our naval dispositions 
were to meet a threat from the North Sea. Our princi- 
pal fleet was in the Mediterranean; the Channel Fleet 
was at Gibraltar, and the defence of home waters rested 
upon the Home Fleet, a collection of antique vessels, 
used for port- and coast-guard ships, generally known 
irreverently as the ' ' gobby fleet. ' ' If hostile action had 
been taken against Rojdestvensky before he passed 
Ushant, and had the French joined their allies, the 
British Navy would have been liable to be attacked in 
detail. The lesson was reinforced a few years later, when 
Germany suddenly presented to France what was 
almost an ultimatum, demanding the dismissal of M. 



272 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Delcasse from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The 
Channel Fleet was, once more, at Gibraltar, with the 
newly formed Atlantic Fleet. Both were ordered to 
stand fast, for fear the diplomatic situation should be 
unfavourably affected by a concentration in home 
waters. The Home Fleet was then, perhaps, suffi- 
ciently strong to deal with the existing German Navy. 
But if these things were done in the green tree, what 
might not be done in the dry? 

Sir John Fisher's schemes were based, in his own 
words, on the necessity for securing "the fighting effi- 
ciency of the Fleet, and its instant readiness for war." 
He recalled the six battleships from China, where, after 
the disappearance of Russian sea power, they were 
no longer needed for the time; he reduced the Mediter- 
ranean Fleet and the Channel Fleet each to six ships, 
and he utilised the vessels thus obtained to create the 
Atlantic Fleet, of six battleships, and to strengthen the 
Home Fleet with comparatively modern vessels. These 
latter were kept at the three great naval ports, manned 
with nucleus crews, and organised in divisions under the 
officers who would command them in war. The neces- 
sary men were obtained by recalling the small cruisers, 
sloops, and gunboats kept on foreign stations, ships of 
little or no fighting power, which nevertheless absorbed 
about ten thousand seamen. This reform was hotly 
contested, on the ground that the niimber of battleships 
kept in full commission was somewhat reduced thereby. 
But, in point of fact, the nucleus crews provided were 
so large that, since they included all the skilled ratings, 
and were continually practised at sea, they were fit to 
fight even without their "balance crews, " which, more- 
over, consisted of the men who were going through the 
schools, or were otherwise employed in their home ports. 



Underwood & Underwood. 



British Destroyer " Foam " 




A British " Dreadnought " 



THE CHALLENGE 273 

The net result was to render nugatory von Tirpitz's 
hope of being able to mobilise the German Navy more 
rapidly than the British could be mobilised. 

Sir John was, in reality, silently and adroitly, swing- 
ing round the British battle-front from south to east. 
The Dreadnought, the first of the all-big-gun class 
of battleship, was ordered in 1905 and pushed to com- 
pletion in a year. The nation was astonished when 
instead of being placed in full commission in one of the 
sea-going fleets, she was attached to a new nucleus crew 
unit, called the Nore Division of the Home Fleet. The 
new class of battle-cruisers. Invincible, Indomitable, and 
Inflexible, followed her there, and then, when the time 
was ripe, the Nore Division and the Channel and Atlan- 
tic Fleets became one fully commissioned force, the 
Home Fleet. This force was further strengthened as 
ships came to hand. The remaining battleships were 
withdrawn from the Mediterranean, the French under- 
taking the. guardianship of our mutual interests in that 
sea, and, eventually, one single organisation of our 
battleship force emerged, known as the First and Second 
Fleets, each consisting of four complete squadrons 
of eight ships each, the first four in full commission, 
the second with nucleus crews of greater or less size. 
Each squadron had its attached cruiser squadron, the 
First consisting of battle-cruisers, and each its flotilla 
of torpedo-boat destroyers, with hght cruisers as flotilla 
leaders. Besides this, the surplus torpedo-craft and 
the large submarine flotilla were organised under an 
Admiral of Patrol, to undertake the guardianship of 
the coast and thus leave the fleets a free hand. The 
gunnery of the fleet was revolutionised according to 
the methods of Admiral Sir Percy Scott, while, by a new 
system of common entry and training, it was sought to 
18 



274 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

amalgamate the officers of the military and engineering 
branches. A War Staff was appointed at the Admiralty, 
and a War College established at Portsmouth, for the 
study of naval strategy and tactics. For the first 
time since 1815 we had a scientifically thought-out sys- 
tem of naval defence, based on the occupation of a 
central position in home waters over against the anti- 
cipated foe, but spreading into all the seas of the world. 
All the advantages of recent growth were taken into 
account : wireless telegraphy, the turbine, oil fuel. Ships 
were designed according to the strategical and tactical 
theories of their use which were worked out. Moreover, 
the war-navy and the mercantile marine were brought 
into closer relation with each other, mainly through the 
instrumentality of Lord Charles Beresford. A step 
which has proved fruitful of good in the time of testing. 
The underlying principle of strategy in all these 
reforms was the old one: that the main force of Great 
Britain should face the main force of the enemy in over- 
whelming strength from a position which would give it 
the best chance of forcing an action should opportunity 
present itself. Behind this "sure shield, " the activities 
of the country, whether military or commercial, could 
go on unchecked. A military force was postulated 
for home defence, capable of dealing with a raid of 
seventy thousand men, or, in the formula adopted, of 
such strength as to ensure that, if the enemy come, he 
must come in such force that he could not come at all. 
An Expeditionary Force of one hundred and sixty 
thousand men was provided for, which the naval people 
hoped would be used in conjunction with the fleet, to 
threaten descents on the enemy's coast, and thus to 
immobilise a number of his troops out of all proportion 
to its own strength. The magnitude of the effort 



THE CHALLENGE 275 

which Great Britain has been compelled to make by 
land, and which has upset all the considered strategy 
on which our plans were based, could not have been fore- 
seen. But the Navy was prepared to guarantee the safe 
passage of the Expeditionary Force to the Continent of 
Europe, even before the fleet of the Power next to our- 
selves in strength had been met and defeated, and to 
maintain its communications. It has fully made good 
its word. 

Sir John Fisher did not remain in office long enough 
to see his schemes come to full frmtion. He reached the 
retirement age of an Admiral of the fleet in 1910, and 
was raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Fisher of 
Kilverstone. In the words of Lord Brassey, he had done 
"the day's work of a giant. " Naturally, some parts of 
his schemes raised bitter opposition; but they gave us 
the Navy with which we have successfully faced the 
German onslaught. That, however, is a subject which 
must be reserved for the next chapter. 

In 191 1 the Germans attempted to establish them- 
selves on the western coast of Morocco, in a position 
which would have been eminently favourable for attacks 
upon our commerce. The gunboat Panther suddenly 
appeared off Agadir, and was later replaced by the light 
cruiser Berlin. The ensuing period was full of danger. 
But the firm attitude of Great Britain, whose interests 
were directly menaced, encouraged the French, on this 
occasion, to stand firm. The matter ended by a com- 
promise, the French yielding a part of the French Congo 
in return for an abandonment of German pretensions 
in Morocco. It was a piece of successful blackmail on 
the part of the Germans ; but the event showed that the 
Entente Powers were no longer in a mood to allow 
the bully of Europe to have his way, and the reorganised 



276 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

sea power of Great Britain forbade him to hope that 
he could reach the object of his desires. In the autumn 
of the same year the Italians attacked the Turkish 
possessions in Tripoli, while in 1912 the war between 
Turkey and the Balkan States took place. These 
events do not strictly belong to our subject, but they 
were each of them incidents which led directly to the 
great struggle which was to follow. The year 1913 was 
devoted by Germany to the increase of her land arma- 
ments, a threat to which the French immediately re- 
sponded. Internal troubles both in France and Great 
Britain during the following year made the Germans 
believe that they saw their chance. The time was ripe 
for the blow in other ways also. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE VALLEY OF DECISION 

Whenever a tyrant has come into conflict with 
sea power it has broken him. It is a force which tyrants 
have attempted to wield, but have consistently failed. 
It was so with Xerxes, with Philip II., with Louis XIV., 
with Napoleon. Xerxes chastising the Hellespont is an 
allegory, the meaning of which is revealed in the history 
of mankind. The issue was raised afresh in 19 14 by 
Wilhelm II. of Germany and his ally of Austria. The 
arrogant revival of the doctrines of the Holy Alliance 
which was witnessed after Sadowa and Sedan had 
placed Prussia in a dominating military position was a 
gauntlet thrown down to the free nations of the world. 
A whole logic of tyranny, based on an insane pride of 
race, a lust for domination, a worship of armed might, 
and a theory of the Divine Right of Kings was worked 
out by soldiers and professors and presented to the 
mystic dreamer who sat upon the Imperial Throne. 
The descendants of Luther took Nietzsche for their 
prophet. Christianity became, for them, a "slave 
religion"; its tenets of mercy and justice were deemed 
unworthy of a race of super-men; a reincarnation of 
Wotan was installed in the Eternal Throne as "the good 
old God" of the German tribes. Not consciously, of 
course. But the attributes of the God the Germans 

277 



278 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

came to worship were those of Wotan rather than of 
the God of Love revealed in Jesus Christ. 

The whole machinery of the State moved to one end. 
There is no denying the energy, capacity, and mental 
power the Germans put into their task of national and 
Imperial organisation from 1871 onwards. There is 
this much to be said for them: their Empire was no 
natural growth, but a piece of elaborate and skilful 
cabinet-making. By the sword it was won; by the 
sword alone it could be kept. Moreover, it was born 
late into the family of nations. The vacant spaces of 
the world were already allotted. Only the sword could 
carve a way to world-power, and to the sword must be 
added the trident, if Great Britain, which lay like a 
breakwater across the path to oversea empire, was to 
be removed out of the way. To many nations the 
task might have seemed too great. They would have 
been content with the material fruits of their industry, 
and, armed for defence, would have abstained from 
provocation of their neighbours. But that was not the 
tradition which the HohenzoUerns had inherited from 
Frederick the Great. It was not the logical outcome 
of the teaching of Bismarck — who, be it said, was too 
great to be logical. A frenzied conceit, spread through 
all classes of the drilled and docile nation by the pro- 
fessors and school teachers, taught that the world 
needed, for its happiness, to be brought under the sway 
of German Kultur. Thus, while other peoples stood 
dismayed at German tastelessness and vulgarity, this 
besotted folk regarded itself as the guide predestined 
to lead the world in sweetness and light. The smaller 
nations had no right to a separate existence. For 
their own good it was requisite that they should come 
direct under the benevolent tyranny of HohenzoUern 



THE VALLEY OP DECISION 279 

or Hapsburg, or should submit to the rule of a Teutonic 
princelet placed upon the throne and upheld by an 
army trained by German officers on the German model. 
Happily for European liberty, one poison counter- 
acted another. Pan-Germanism, on the one hand, and 
Pan-Slavism on the other, prevented that League of 
Monarchs which would in very truth have riveted the 
principles of the Holy AlUance on the necks of all 
Continental peoples. We are so accustomed to think 
of Germany, Austria, and Italy as composing the Triple 
Alliance, that we forget the days of the Drei-Kaiser- 
bund which threatened a revival of the "leagued oppres- 
sion" which destroyed PoHsh independence. The work 
of the Imperial meeting at Skiernevice in the early 
eighties of last century never came to fruition, owing 
to the irreconcilable antagonism between the ambitions 
of the Slavs and the Germanic peoples in relation to 
Turkey and the Near East. Italy was forced into 
an unnatural alliance with the Tedeschi, whom, of 
all people, the Italians most heartily abhor, by the pres- 
sure on her northern frontiers. The advantage to 
Germany and Austria of her adhesion to the Central 
League consisted in the reinforcement which her navy 
gave to their sea power in the Mediterranean, and the 
route into Eastern France, turning the flank of the 
French positions, which the use of her territory would 
give. But the adhesion of Italy to the Central League 
in the event of war depended on one thing, as we shall 
see: on the attitude of Great Britain. With the excep- 
tion of the future of Albania and Epirus, it is difficult 
to see a single point where the interests, or sentiments 
of the Itahan people were identical with those of the 
Germans and Austrians, and even in the excepted case, 
the identity was negative, not positive. The Italians 



28o SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

desired that the Serbians should be kept out of Durazzo 
and San Giovanni di Medua, the Greeks out of Avlona. 
They certainly did not desire to see these ports pass to 
Austria. 

In 1 9 14, the German Navy had risen to the position 
of second in the world. It was far from being in a posi- 
tion to challenge single-handed the naval might of 
Great Britain, for our strength in heavy ships was nearly 
two to one numerically, and probably a very great deal 
more than two to one in the other elements which make 
sea power. But, as we saw from the Preamble to the 
German Navy Act of 1900, the German Admiralty 
held the opinion that "it is not absolutely necessary 
that the German battle-fleet should be as strong as that 
of the greatest naval Power, because a great naval 
Power will not be able, as a rule, to concentrate all its 
striking forces against us." The diplomacy of King 
Edward and the naval policy of Lord Fisher had rend- 
ered the hope underlying this sentence nugatory. Our 
battle-front had been swung round to face eastward, 
and our rear had been rendered safe by the new and 
friendly relations into which we had entered with 
France and, subsequently, with Russia. There re- 
mained two hopes for the Germans : First, that we should 
argue as they did, that the defeat of a strong German 
Navy would so substantially weaken us that our own 
position in the world would no longer be secured by an 
adequate fleet, and that, therefore, we should hesitate 
to join in the struggle; and, secondly, that their antici- 
pated superiority in training, in material, and, above 
all, in speed of mobilisation, might avail to give them 
an initial advantage which would counteract their total 
inferiority in strength. Both hopes were doomed to 
disappointment . 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 281 

The first assumption is a characteristic manifestation 
of that cynical philosophy known to the school of Bis- 
marck as "Realpolitik. " That nothing ought to 
count in national policy except advantage; that truth, 
honour, faith, loyalty have no place in international 
relations; that the plighted word of king or people 
should hold good just so long as convenience prescribes 
and may be broken when circumstances alter: such 
are the principles underlying German statecraft, and 
such are the principles on which the Wilhelmstrasse 
seems to have believed, quite sincerely, that we should 
act. The bond we had signed and sealed, along 
with Prussia, to protect the neutrality of Belgium; our 
amity with France and Russia, were not expected to 
weigh with us against the chance which would come of 
fishing in troubled waters if we kept our sea power intact. 
The earth and everything in it would belong to us and 
Germany if we held aloof — until the time came for Ger- 
many to swallow our share as well as her own. Such 
was the thought underlying the dishonouring conditions 
of neutrality offered by Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg 
to our Government. Such was the ethical outlook 
from which sprang his cry of mortification and anger 
that all this should be thrown away for the sake of "a 
scrap of paper." The British and the German minds; 
the point of view of militarism and sea power are, as 
the mathematicians say, asymptotic. If it be true that 
a gentleman is one who "sweareth unto his neighbour 
and disappointeth him not, though it be to his own 
hindrance," then, in that memorable interview with 
Sir Edward Goschen, Bethmann-Hollweg wrote himself 
down a cad. And he spoke in the name of his nation. 

Lest the charge of unctuous rectitude which some 
of our own countrymen level at us when our obligation 



282 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

to Belgium is put forward as our ground for war be 
brought against the foregoing passage, let it be frankly 
acknowledged that our interest jumped with our 
honour. Otherwise our pledge to Belgium would never 
have been given. We were about to fight once more 
the age-long issue which had brought us into the field 
every time it has been raised, from the Spanish Armada 
to the defeat of Napoleon. To maintain the independ- 
ence of the small nations which fringe the coastline 
of Europe, and to prevent, so far as lies in our power, 
any one of the great military monarchies of the Con- 
tinent from enlarging its access to blue water are ob- 
jects for us no less vital than to preserve the balance of 
power and to check all attempts at universal dominion. 
Indeed, the three things all hang together. For this 
reason, we have always fought for the independence of 
the Low Countries. For this reason we have been the 
steadfast ally of Portugal. For this reason we, for 
years, as Lord Salisbury said, "backed the wrong 
horse" by defending the Turks against the Russians. 
Once we failed to be true to our policy, and oiu* failure 
gave Kiel to Germany. 

Only when the secrets of all hearts are revealed will 
the cross-currents which swayed the minds of men in the 
eventful days between the murder of the Archduke 
Franz Ferdinand on June 28th, and the outbreak of war 
be fully understood. Nothing is yet clear, save the 
dignified determination of France to stand by Russia, 
the heroic resolve of King Albert and his Belgians to 
resist aggression, and the calm resolution with which 
Great Britain stood to her word. The motives of the 
Russian people are clear enough in the light of subse- 
quent events ; but those of the Tsardom are less easy 
to unravel. As to Germany and Austria, arrogance, 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 283 

ambition, and panic seem to have borne about equal 
parts. By the morning of August 4th, Germany knew 
that, if she persisted in her intention to attack France 
and to violate the neutraHty of Belgium in order to do 
so, the sea power of Britain would be ranged against her. 
The German Higher Command could hardly be so 
obtuse as not to realise, at least partially, what that 
meant. But they still hoped to neutralise their dis- 
advantage by rapid mobilisation and a dashing "hussar 
stroke " at the outset. They had seized an opportunity 
which presented itself at a favourable moment. The 
German Navy is a conscript force. It has, for back- 
bone, a large number of petty officers and leading hands 
who volunteer for continuous service and make a life 
profession of the navy. But of the rest one-third is 
changed every year, the change taking place in the 
early autumn. In the month of August, therefore, 
the German Navy reaches its highest point of efficiency, 
the youngest members of its crews having had about 
a year's training, while the three-year men are still on 
board. In August, 19 14, the High Sea Fleet had just 
returned from manoeuvres when war broke out. The 
manoeuvres themselves had followed immediately upon 
the junketings at Kiel to celebrate the re-opening of 
the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal after the widening and deep- 
ening necessitated by the coming of the Dreadnought 
type of ship. Admiral Sir George Warrender and a 
division of the First Battle Squadron had been present, 
and the Kaiser had gone out of his way to show excep- 
tional courtesy to him and to his accomplished wife. 

As it happened, the circumstances were hardly less 
fortunate for the British Navy, since a test mobilisation 
of the Second, or nucleus crew. Fleet, which had been 
ordered months previously when there was no hint of 



284 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

trouble in the air, had just been brought to a successful 
conclusion. The events of the latter half of July will 
long Hve in the memory of those who took part in them. 
On the eighteenth, the long lines of ships, stretching 
from the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour across to the 
Island, lay in sunlight, with a stiff breeze which stretched 
the ensigns and admirals' flags as stiff as boards. The 
picket boats and pinnaces raced to and fro, timibling 
and tossing over the gleaming waves, bringing parties 
of guests to the various ships. For the King was com- 
ing to inspect his fleets. In the interval of waiting, 
Shamrock III. danced down the Hnes like some frail 
butterfly, on her way to challenge for the America Cup, 
and in tow of the Erin, destined to finish her journey, 
not in New York Harbour, but in the Adriatic. Over 
this world of light and gaiety came the first shadow of 
the storm. The King's visit was cancelled. He was 
engaged with the Party leaders in a last effort to avert 
civil war in Ireland. That even graver matters lay 
behind, few guessed. 

Two days later he came. It was a grey, wet morn- 
ing as the harbour tugs detailed to convey the spectators 
took up their position beyond the Horse Fort. The 
ships weighed anchor, and were led by the King in the 
Victoria and Albert out to sea. The yacht anchored 
hard by, and the guns of the great ships pealed forth 
their A ve Ccesar! as they steamed by. First battleships. 
Dreadnoughts, and pre- Dreadnoughts ; then battle- 
cruisers, armoured cruisers, cruisers, light cruisers; the 
destroyer flotillas : in endless stretch of pageantry they 
went by while the seaplanes wheeled and circled and 
dipped overhead. The mightiest fleet ever assembled 
steamed out past the Nab on its last errand of peace. 
And there were in that array ships which should return 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 285 

no more at all. The war-cloud was, by then, bigger 
than a man's hand, and in the minds of the spectators 
the thought was present that things might be as it 
proved they were destined to be. 

On July 24th, after four days' exercise in the Channel, 
the First Fleet returned to Portland, andthe squadrons 
of the Second Fleet to their home ports, where the 
reservists were dismissed to their homes. The First 
Fleet was to have given manoeuvre leave to the crews 
by watches. But on July 26th the order was flashed 
down to it, "Stand fast!" The ships of the Second 
Fleet were ordered to remain in close proximity to their 
"balance crews, " that is, to the men in the schools and 
harbour establishments detailed to bring them up to 
full complement. On July 29th the First Fleet moved 
from Portland, the bands playing The Red, White, and 
Blue; Britons, Strike Home; Hearts of Oak; and such like 
stirring airs of Eighteen Hundred and War-time. The 
movement was quite unexpected, and only a small 
crowd had assembled on Portland Breakwater to cheer 
them as they put to sea. They "faded like a cloud in 
the silent summer heaven, " and no one, the Germans 
least of all, knew their destination. But when that 
fleet steamed out of Portland, the chance of a sudden 
blow on which the hope of Germany at sea was based, 
vanished. On August 2nd, Mr. Churchill took the step 
which, whatever view is taken of his subsequent actions, 
earned him the undying gratitude of his country. He is- 
sued the order to mobilise the whole of our naval forces. 
The response bettered expectation. On the evening of 
August 3rd the Admiralty were able to announce that, 

the mobilisation of the British Navy was completed in 
all respects at four o'clock this morning. This is due to 



286 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the measures taken, and to the voluntary response of the 
reserve men in the absence of a Royal Proclamation, 
which has now been issued. The entire Navy is now on 
a war footing. 

The force so mobilised comprised the whole of the 
effective warships in the Navy List, and the trawler 
reserve, which had been organised for mine-sweeping. 
Mercantile auxiliaries were taken up, and their guns 
mounted with extraordinary rapidity. Necessarily, 
many men of the Royal Naval Reserve, which consists 
of merchant seamen, were out of the country at the 
start. But the Fleet Reservists and the Royal Naval 
Volunteer Reserve showed up in full numbers from the 
start. That the English had not lost the habit of the 
sea was soon apparent. 

War was declared at il p.m. on August 4th. At 
9 A.M. on August 5th, less than twelve hours later, the 
German mine-layer, Konigin Luise, was sunk when 
laying mines off the coast of Suffolk. Numbers had 
already been laid, with the object of catching the British 
fleet on its way to its war stations. But the British 
fleet was already there. Other schemes of the Ger- 
mans to hamper our mobilisation and to destroy our 
communications were nipped in the bud by the prompti- 
tude of the measures taken by the Admiralty. The 
faith of Admiral von der Goltz in German superiority 
of mobilisation was thus brought to nought. The 
mines laid by the Konigin Luise unhappily caught the 
Amphion, the leader of the flotilla which sank the mine- 
layer; but they effected nothing else, beyond demon- 
strating to the world that Germany only signed the 
Article of the Hague Convention dealing with the 
laying of mines in order that she might snatch an 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 287 

advantage by disregarding it. The cruisers which had 
been built to prey upon our commerce were forced to 
remain in their home ports, save such as were already in 
distant waters. The ships of the German mercantile 
marine which were in Hamburg and Bremen were laid 
up where they were. Those which were in neutral 
ports dared not put to sea, but interned themselves 
at once. Those already on the high seas scuttled like 
rabbits for the nearest neutral ports, among others the 
great liner Kronprinzessin Cecilie, which was on voyage 
home from the United States with a precious cargo of 
bullion. Within forty-eight hours the sea-borne trade 
of Germany had ceased to be. In all our successful 
naval wars, we had never asserted our mastery of the 
ocean routes so speedily or so completely. The first 
half of the function of sea power was successfully car- 
ried out. We denied the use of the sea to the enemy, 
save by neutral ships. The second part was also carried 
out, though less completely. We secured the use of the 
sea to ourselves. 

The immediate results of the entry of Great Britain 
into the war must now be discussed at some length. 
The more obvious effects are, of course, easily apparent. 
The way was made safe for the passage of the Expedi- 
tionary Force to France, and its immediate dispatch 
was permitted by the inviolability secured to our shores 
by the "instant readiness for war" of the fleet. The 
seas were kept open for trade both to the French and 
ourselves, and the resources of the neutral world were 
thus made available to correct the initial unreadiness 
of the free Powers. The French were enabled to bring 
their oversea armies for service in the Western battle- 
fields. Moreover, we ourselves brought four good 
divisions of Regulars, the 26th, 27th, 28th, and 29th, 



288 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

back from distant parts of the Empire, replacing them 
and the Indian Army, which was imperatively needed 
to strengthen the thin line in France and Flanders, 
with Territorial troops. And, in due course, Canadians, 
Australians, and New Zealanders, the gallant volunteers 
of the marches of the Empire, were brought to stand side 
by side with the sons of the Mother Country. At the 
same time, many thousands of Germans and Austrians 
of military age were prevented from joining the armies 
of our foes. Excluding altogether the army in France, 
which, of course, is there entirely owing to sea power, 
it would probably be within the mark to say that 
the same force has been worth not less than two million 
soldiers to the Allies. Nor is the total number of men 
furnished to our own armies and denied to those of our 
enemies the only thing to be considered. It is neces- 
sary not only to have soldiers, but to have them where 
they are wanted. Whether the strategy which directed 
the Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, Salonika, and Egyptian 
campaigns was sound or not, at any rate the armies 
required were conveyed to the chosen spots by virtue 
of sea power, and, by the same agency, have hitherto 
been maintained where they were required, or have 
been transferred to another battlefield and redistributed 
according to need. Egypt, as always in history, has 
furnished a striking instance of the superiority of sea 
communications over land communications. We used 
it as a central base, not only for the army defending 
the Canal or designated for offensive operations in 
Palestine, but for troops whose eventual destination 
was France, Gallipoli, Salonika, or Mesopotamia. The 
Turks, on the other hand, despite the ardent desire of 
their German masters to strike at what they term the 
backbone of the British Empire, have never been able 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 289 

to muster a force sufficiently large to cause us the small- 
est uneasiness. The sea-borne troops have numbered 
hundreds of thousands, the land-borne troops, tens of 
thousands. 

Two other episodes may also be mentioned by way 
of illustration. The Serbian Army, scattered, weary, 
ragged, and starving, straggled down to the coast 
through the Albanian mountains in the autumn of 191 5. 
There they were met by French transports, were 
snatched away out of reach of their pursuing enemies, 
fed, re-equipped, and re-organised in Corfu, and were 
then conveyed to Salonika where they have rescued 
Monastir from the hands of their inveterate foes. This 
was a feat in every way comparable with the rescue of 
Sir John Moore's army at Corunna. Again, thanks to 
the assistance of the Japanese, forty thousand Russian 
troops were brought round from Vladivostok to fight 
in France. The number seems insignificant in relation 
to the mighty hosts engaged on the Western Front. 
But it is almost as great as Wellington's Peninsular 
army, greater than the number of British troops which 
fought at Waterloo, and not much less than the original 
force which Sir Redvers BuUer took to South Africa in 
1899. It was thought an astonishing feat, of which 
the British Empire alone was capable, to convey that 
army six thousand miles. The Japanese conveyed 
the Russian force more than double that distance, 
covered, of course, by the British Navy, and, in parti- 
cular, by the Grand Fleet, "hidden in the Northern 
mists." These things have been going on all through 
the war, unseen and in silence. But they are merely 
the more commonplace workings of sea power. 

If we look a little deeper, the results are even more 
momentous. Without the aid of Britain, the navies of 

19 



290 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

France and Russia would have been outnumbered by 
those of Germany and Austria about two to one. At 
the beginning of the war, Russia had not a single Dread- 
nought ship in commission, the French but four. Ger- 
many and Austria-Hungary opposed to them no fewer 
than twenty-four battleships and battle-cruisers of the 
Dreadnought type. It is evident that the control of 
the Baltic would have been completely in the hands of 
the Germans, but for the fact that the presence of the 
Grand Fleet of Britain in the North Sea forbade them 
to concentrate their strength to the North. Had 
they been able to do so, a swift blow at Petrograd by 
sea might have settled the event in the Eastern theatre 
within a few months. Moreover, the coasts of North- 
ern France would have lain open to attack by sea, and 
the French must have kept a large nimiber of men of 
the fighting line to watch them. With Great Britain 
on her side, not only has France been able to concen- 
trate the whole of her fighting strength against the 
German armies, but the Germans have felt themselves 
compelled to keep a large number of troops in the North 
to guard against a sudden descent upon their coasts. 
But there is more than this. The position of Italy in 
the Triple Alliance has already been discussed. If the 
shores of Italy had not been secured by a force more 
powerful than anything the Austro-Germans could 
bring against the combined naval strength of France 
and Italy, it would have been impossible for the Italians 
to have resisted the pressure of the Teutons. They 
would have been forced into the war on the side of 
the Central Powers. That would have meant a way 
open for the invasion of France through Savoy, and the 
French positions on their eastern frontier taken in 
reverse. Mutatis mutandis, the situation of 1796-8 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 291 

would have been very nearly reproduced, with still 
greater advantage on the side of the invader. But this 
time, the role of invader and invaded would have been 
reversed. 

Nor is this aU, important as the considerations just 
stated are. Turkey hesitated long before throwing in 
her lot with Germany and Austria. But for the unfortu- 
nate affair of the Goeben, she might have hesitated till 
the end. Bereft of sea power, the chances of war 
offered few attractions for her. The safe arrival of the 
Goeben at Constantinople, however, gave her a tempor- 
ary command of the Black Sea, for the Russian Dread- 
noughts were not ready. Had Great Britain not joined 
the Allies, there can be no sort of doubt that the chance 
of striking down Russia, her secular foe, would have 
brought her into the arena at once. Bulgaria, without 
any question, would immediately have followed her 
example. These things were all included in the calcu- 
lations of the Central Powers. Russia has always 
found it a sufficiently difficult task to fight the Turks 
single-handed. With Austria and a part of the German 
armies on her hands, and with the Ottoman forces 
supplied by Germany and led by German officers, she 
must have been overwhelmed. Then, with Serbia 
crushed, Rumania, like Italy, forced to abide by the 
engagements into which she had entered, and Greece, 
under her ineffable King, siding enthusiastically with 
the strongest, the whole of the Teuton ambitions in the 
Near and Middle East would have been realised. 
Events have shown us plainly enough that the Central 
Powers had nothing to fear from the war on two fronts 
unless the trident of Britain were thrown into the scale. 

But the British declaration of war reversed the 
situation. Instead of being two-fold stronger at sea, 



292 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the Central Powers were now almost exactly two-fold 
weaker, so far as numbers were concerned. How much 
weaker in all other elements, it is impossible to compute. 
This gave the forces of liberty the precious gift of time 
to organise their resources, they being, in the very 
nature of the case, less prepared for the struggle than 
the forces of tyranny. In all history it has been so, 
and in all history it is fortunate for the cause of right 
and freedom that sea power does not flourish under 
systems which make for aggression and oppression. 
The Germans have come nearer to success than any 
such people have before. If the trident had been in 
their fist in 19 14, or they could have succeeded in 
grasping it, the world would by now have been at their 
feet, despite all the armies of the Allies. The recent 
history of Turkey is illimiinative on this point. The 
Ottoman Navy once ranked third in the world. It was 
still formidable as lately as 1877. But Abdul Hamid 
feared the fleet, and he deliberately let it sink into decay. 
The very engines of the warships were sold by the 
Minister of Marine for his private profit. So Turkey, 
with the most magnificent naval position in Europe 
in her hands, entered the final struggle for existence 
(which we may date from the Italian attack on Tripoli 
in 191 1) without a navy. Had she been more powerful 
at sea than the Greeks in 1 912, it is reasonable to sup- 
pose that Salonika and Dedeagatch would still have 
been in her possession, along with the islands of the 
iEgean, and that the Gallipoli expedition could never 
have taken place. 

That famous adventure failed to attain its ultimate 
purpose, and has, in consequence, been somewhat 
hastily written down a disastrous failure. But, having 
regard to the circumstances and needs of the moment 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 293 

at which it was launched, that view is far too shallow. 
Had the Turks been able to bring their whole power 
to bear against the Russians at the time of Mackensen's 
famous "drive" through Galicia, especially had the 
accession of Bulgaria to the Central League then 
permitted the use of Turkish and Bulgarian troops 
against the Serbians and thus against the Russian 
flank, it is difficult to see how the Allies could have 
avoided signing a calamitous peace. That the greater 
positive ends were not attained is lamentable. Had 
they been, it is probable that peace would also have 
come long before, and that it would have been equally 
calamitous to the Central Powers. Russian man- 
power and food-power would have been fully combined 
with Western munition-power, and the result must 
have been overwhelming. It is, of course, possible 
that some other and more practicable way might have 
been found of obtaining the same end. Alternative 
schemes were proposed; but, as one and all depended on 
the use of sea power, there is no need to discuss them 
in detail here. 

A consequence of sea power, subtle and easy to be 
missed, must now be discussed. As time went on, the 
huge armies placed in the field by both sides extended 
in fortified lines the whole length of their natural 
frontiers. Thus the line on the Western Front extended 
from the Belgian coast to the borders of Switzerland; 
that on the Eastern Front from the Baltic, at first 
to the Rumanian frontier, and now to the Black Sea. 
The Italians extended from the Swiss Alps to the head 
of the Adriatic. In Asia, the Turkish line extended 
from the Black Sea down to well into Persia, with its 
right flank refused to cover Mesopotamia from a 
British advance. By land, therefore, the opportunity 



294 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

of a flank attack was everywhere denied to the com- 
batants. All that any of them could hope to achieve 
was to create a flank by breaking through the enemy's 
lines by frontal attack. But command of the sea 
confers on its possessor the power of reaching round the 
flank of the enemy's line and thus turning it. If the 
Germans could acquire such command, they could 
turn the northern end of the Russian positions beyond 
Riga. A successful landing on the Belgian coast or in 
Schleswig would place the British in a similar position. 
But, apart from such obvious strokes as these, the 
apprehension of which has an abiding influence on the 
course of the war, there are more distant opportunities 
which have had consequences, the full effect of which 
will only be seen when its complete history is written. 
Success in Gallipoli would have turned the flank of the 
Central Powers to some purpose. When its approach- 
ing failure became apparent, the Bulgarians were 
cajoled or bribed into the war, and, for the moment, the 
danger was averted. But the concentration of German 
aims was none the less dissipated, and the Franco- 
British force at Salonika occupied something of the 
same position that Wellington's army did in the lines 
of Torres Vedras. The actual turning-movement, 
however, was wider still. It began with the driving in 
of the Turkish right flank at Kut and Baghdad, aided 
by the British movement on Palestine. The end of 
these things is not yet; the military effect is not fully 
apparent. But this much can be said: that however 
valuable Turkish and Bulgarian aid may have been to 
the Germans, they would gladly have dispensed with it, 
if the dangers against which it was intended to guard 
could have been removed at the same time. The 
existence of these dangers was the result of the superior- 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 295 

ity at sea which we and our AlHes possessed. Sea 
power has shown its old abiHty to force its energy 
into excentric movements, with consequent dissipa- 
tion of his energy and resources. Turkey and Bul- 
garia have no resources of their own for the manufacture 
of guns and munitions. Germany and Austria must 
supply them. If, then, the superiority in artillery with 
which the Germans began the war on the Western 
Front had passed to the other side when the campaign 
of 191 7 opened, the fact may be attributed, in part at 
least, to the fact that the brooding threat of sea power 
compelled the enemy to seek allies whose dependence 
on him for the equipment of war weakened his own 
power to compete with the output of material which the 
French and British could obtain from all parts of the 
world. 

The events of the war at sea may now be briefly 
recorded. As we haVe seen, the first function of sea 
power was speedily fulfilled. The Germans lost the 
use of the sea. If the Germans wished to regain it, 
there was only one way in which they could so do. 
Sir John Jellicoe and Sir David Beatty told them so as 
plainly as acts could speak. The Grand Fleet swept 
the North Sea, offering battle. When this had no 
effect, Sir David trailed his coat inside the Bight of 
Heligoland. Thus was brought on the dashing action 
of August 28, 1914, in which the German cruisers 
Mainz, Koln and Ariadne, with several torpedo-boats, 
were sunk and the power of the battle-cruiser first 
demonstrated. The German heavy ships refused action 
and hid themselves in the mist. Germany, then and 
there, surrendered the command of the sea on the 
positive side. The natural consequence was that she 
was cut off, in a degree more or less complete, from 



296 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

oversea supplies. Great Britain established what, for 
want of a better word, is called a blockade, which she 
tightened at will, the only restraint being consideration 
for the interests of neutrals. Measures were not form- 
ally adopted until the Germans announced their inten- 
tion of sinking merchantmen approaching the shores of 
Great Britain by submarines, and until the German 
Government had assumed the control of the whole 
food supply of Germany. There is a distinction 
between the British blockade of Germany and the 
measures taken by Order in Council against Napoleon 
which has been generally overlooked. Napoleon's 
expressed intention was to ruin Great Britain by shut- 
ting her goods out from the whole Continent. The 
British Government, on the other hand, was willing 
that not only British, but also neutral, goods should 
reach the Continent, provided they paid toll to Great 
Britain first. Thus the financial ability of the country 
to continue the war was maintained. But the Contin- 
ent was made to feel the smart by exorbitant prices. 
As against Germany and her allies, the intention has 
been, on the other hand, to cut off all possible sources of 
supply. The difference in method is explained by the 
difference in the character of the two wars. In the 
former, it was an affair of governments and armies; 
in the latter, it has been an affair of whole nations, 
of the efforts of every man and every woman, in the 
fighting line or behind it. The quickest possible 
decision was, therefore, imperative. 

The "strangle-hold" on Germany, however, took 
effect much more slowly than many people had be- 
lieved would be the case. For this there are two 
main reasons. In the first place, Germany before the 
war was, to a very large extent, a self-supporting and 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 297 

exporting country, both in regard to food and to many 
raw materials, especially those which were required 
for the production of munitions of war. With her 
export trade cut off, the whole of the stocks of these 
raw materials was available for home consumption. 
As regards food supplies, with the exception of the 
cereals, previously imported in the main from Russia, 
the greater part of the imports were from Holland, 
Denmark, Switzerland: neutral countries lying along 
the German frontier. The circumstances were, in an- 
other respect, different from those which obtained 
during the Napoleonic Wars. Then, almost the whole 
of the Continent lay at the feet of the Emperor, and it 
was easy to treat goods going to any European port 
under his domination as enemy goods. But Holland 
and the Scandinavian countries were in every way 
entitled to the rights of neutrals. To interfere with 
the high hand with their right to trade with other 
neutral countries, especially with the United States, was 
a proceeding, not only at variance with all the principles 
for theisake of which Great Britain drew the sword, but 
also one fraught with the gravest peril to us. Gently 
as we dealt with neutrals, the sympathy of the smaller 
countries was not so universally with us as the mer- 
its of the quarrel and their own deadly peril from a Ger- 
man success appeared to make it probable that they 
would be. 

It cannot be denied that the experiences of the war 
have shown that the economic advantages of sea 
power had been exploited by this country to a degree 
which carried with it a grave political danger. This 
was particularly apparent after the Germans adopted 
"unrestricted submarine warfare" in February, 
1917. Flagitious as was their defiance of all the laws 



298 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

of nations and of humanity, the British had only them- 
selves to thank for it that, in the many years of peace, 
they had dehberately shut their eyes to the dangers of 
war. The years of peace may be many and those of 
war, mercifully, few. But a week of unsuccessful war 
may destroy for ever all the benefits accruing from 
generations of peace. Sea power is essentially pacific 
in its aims and workings. But behind those peaceful 
workings must always stand the ability to keep the 
paths of the sea open against any foe, whatever weap- 
ons he may use, and sufficient means of endurance to 
hold out until the effects of a temporary reverse or 
a delayed decision can be overcome. Otherwise the 
whole country is in the position of a maritime fortress, 
meant to support and succour the fleet, which, like 
Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War, keeps the fleet 
tethered to itself and incapable of that offensive action 
which is its true function. Great Britain, suffering 
scarcity and fearing starvation while her fleet sealed 
the Germans into their ports, and while one-fifth of 
the globe, including many of its most fertile portions, 
was included within the British Empire, will stand for a 
warning to all time that, in the last analysis, man lives 
by Mother Earth, and that no cheapness of imported 
commodities can compensate for the ruin of a country's 
agriculture. 

The Germans knew from the start that, while they 
themselves were not absolutely dependent on imported 
goods, at any rate for many months, the British were 
dependent at once on sea-borne trade for the very neces- 
saries of life. While, therefore, they surrendered 
somewhat tamely their own use of the sea, they made a 
determined and well-organised effort to stop its use by us. 
They operated in home waters by scattering mines 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 299 

freely, and without warning to neutrals, in the paths 
of shipping, and, in a growing degree, by the use of sub- 
marines. In the distant seas they let loose a number of 
cruisers. The Goeben, battle-cruiser, and Breslau, light 
cruiser, were in the Mediterranean, while outside Euro- 
pean waters were the two powerful armoured cruisers, 
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and several light cruisers, 
the most famous of which were the Emden, Karlsruhe, 
Leipsic, Dresden, Konigsherg, and Nurnherg. In addi- 
tion, there were three or four armed auxiliaries, which, 
in defiance of all agreements, transformed themselves 
into warships on the high seas. The supply of these 
ships was skilfully arranged for by means which are not 
yet known in detail, at any rate outside the Intelligence 
Department of the Admiralty. If war against com- 
merce, most carefully organised in advance, could give 
the command of the seas, the Germans would have 
won it in August and September, 1914. The success 
of their plan was frustrated by their inability to get a 
siifQcient number of cruisers out upon the trade routes, 
and that failure was due to the prompt mobilisation 
of the Grand Fleet and the impotence of the Germans 
to contest the major issue with it. 

To deal first with the Goeben. The object of her 
presence in the Mediterranean was undoubtedly, in part 
at least, to interfere with the transport of the French 
African army to France. In that she and her lighter 
consort, the Breslau, should have had the assistance of 
the Austrian Fleet. But war between France and 
Austria was not declared till August loth, nor between 
Great Britain and Austria till August 12th. The 
German ships bombarded Algiers and Boma during the 
first week of the war, and then betook themselves into 
the neutral port of Messina, which they were, of course, 



300 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

bound to leave at the expiration of twenty-four hours in 
accordance with the Neutrality Declaration of Italy. 
The British had four battle-cruisers in the Mediterran- 
ean, as well a^ some armoured cruisers and light cruisers. 
For some accountable reason the battle-cruiser squad- 
ron was not concentrated against the Germans, but was 
kept watching the Austrian fleet in the Adriatic. 
The task of watching the Goehen and Breslau was 
entrusted to the Defence and Gloucester, . the formerof 
which was greatly inferior in force to the Goeben, while 
the Gloucester was slightly superior to the Breslau. 
Wireless messages failed to bring the battle-cruisers to 
the assistance of the Defence in time; the Admiral whose 
flag was flying in that vessel had positive orders not to 
fight if in inferior force, and, after a plucky attempt to 
engage on the part of the little Gloucester, the two 
German ships escaped into the Dardanelles and up to 
Constantinople, carrying a whole bag of troubles with 
them. Admiral Sir Berkeley Milne, the Commander-in- 
Chief, came home, the chief command in the Mediter- 
ranean being handed over to the French Admiral, 
Boue de Lapeyrere, and the Admiralty "approved the 
measures taken by him in all respects." His second 
in command, Rear-Admiral E. C. T. Troubridge, was 
recalled for an inquiry to be made, was tried by court- 
martial, and was acquitted. As my Lords are in sole 
possession of aU the facts of the case, it is impossible to 
dispute the ground on which their "satisfaction" with 
the conduct of the Commander-in-Chief was based. 
But the failure to make an end of the Goehen and 
Breslau was a costly one for this country and her Allies. 
Equally unfortunate was the escape of the Scharn- 
horst and Gneisenau from Tsing-tao without being 
watched and followed by a superior force. These 



mmw. 





THE VALLEY OF DECISION 301 

powerful ships vanished almost completely from sight 
for over two months, and the British light cruisers, 
engaged in hunting down the commerce raiders, ran a 
continual risk of fetching up against them. Hunting 
commerce raiders entails dissipation of force, and it 
was not the least able part of the German dispositions 
that they provided this strong, concentrated force to 
act as a perpetual menace to the scattered ships of the 
Allies. Squadrons were formed as rapidly as possible 
for the purpose of putting an end to the menace, 
but unfortunately, as events were to prove, one at least 
of these squadrons was itself insufficiently powerful for 
the task. The one British battle-cruiser on the station, 
H.M.A.S. Australia, was for some time engaged in sub- 
duing German islands in the Pacific, for which task there 
was doubtless a sound political reason. The navy of 
Japan, which had declared war in September, joined in 
the hue-and-cry ; but it was only in December that the 
two vessels were finally run to earth, and then only after 
they had inflicted a reverse on the British Navy of a 
particularly galling kind. 

One of the squadrons organised to deal with the 
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau consisted of the Good Hope, 
flying the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock, 
Monmouth, Glasgow, and Otranto, an auxiliary cruiser. 
The Admiralty, aware of the inferiority of this force to 
the Germans, sent out the old battleship Canopus to 
support Cradock, sending him instructions that he was 
not to fight unless she was in company, which was 
equivalent to an order not to fight at all. On November 
ist, Cradock encountered the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau 
which formed the German squadron under Admiral 
Graf von Spee, off Coronel, a port of Chili. The Ger- 
mans were superior in gun-power, disposing of twelve 



302 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

8.2-inch guns upon the broadside and six 6-inch, against 
two 9.2-inch in the Good Hope and seventeen 6-inch for 
the two British vessels combined. But the main-deck 
6-inch of the Good Hope could not be fought in a sea- 
way, and there was a heavy swell running. The Ger- 
man ships, moreover, were homogeneous, while the 
British were diverse. In speed the British had a small 
nominal advantage. This might have enabled Cradock 
to avoid action if that had been his mind. But it was 
insufficient to force action on the enemy until the 
conditions of light favoured him. When the British 
ships were silhouetted against the afterglow, and he 
himself had become almost invisible against the land, 
von Spec accepted battle at twelve thousand yards. 
The action was quickly at an end. Both British ships 
caught fire after a few salvoes from the Germans, and 
just before eight o'clock, the Good Hope blew up. The 
Monmouth continued the hopeless fight for a while 
longer, badly down by the bows, and then the Glasgow, 
which had parted company in face of the overwhelming 
odds, saw a number of flashes, which were doubtless 
the final attack iupon the Monmouth. The rest is 
silence. Not a man of Cradock's gallant ships survived 
to tell the tale. 

There has been much difference of opinion over the 
conduct of the British Admiral in accepting battle. 
That he disobeyed a direct order of the Admiralty is 
clear. That he was outmanoeuvred in the engagement 
is equally clear. But what was the alternative? Von 
Spee might very well have escaped from observation in 
the night and have gone off to wreak mischief, perhaps, 
on the coast of British Columbia, which would have 
raised an outcry throughout the whole Empire. Cra- 
dock was where he was for the express purpose of 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 303 

stopping von Spee's career. It was practically certain 
that, wherever and whenever he fought him, he would 
have to do so without the aid of the Canopus. The 
sending of that ship to support fast cruisers was little 
better than a farce. To fall in with an enemy so nearly 
of equal strength and to part without an action would 
have been to fly in the face of British naval tradition. 
Cradock may very well have called to mind Nelson's 
words, and reasoned that by the time von Spec had 
beaten him soundly he would do us no more mischief 
that year. That, in the event, he failed to put the 
German squadron out of action was due to a tactical 
miscalculation. The words from the Book of Macca- 
bees, inscribed upon his cenotaph, embody the verdict 
of his comrades upon this gallant and unfortunate sea- 
man: "God forbid that I should do this thing and flee 
away from them ; if our time be come, let us die manfully 
for our brethren, and let us not stain our honour." 
It was a consideration, no doubt present to Cradock's 
mind, that if von Spee were only injured comparatively 
lightly he had no port within many thousands of miles 
to which he could go for repairs. He could coal and 
receive supplies at a secret rendezvous ; but if he had to 
seek dockyard repairs he could receive no assistance 
from neutrals. Even if his own ships' companies 
could do the work, his whereabouts in port would be 
immediately known. It was even an object worth 
considerable risk to compel him to empty his maga- 
zines. The British squadron, on the other hand, could 
rely on ports under its own flag in which it could obtain 
the necessary succour. In the sequel, the force brought 
to bear on von Spee was so superior that it is difficult to 
say that Cradock's action had any bearing on the result. 
But it is noteworthy that Admiral Sturdee's despatch 



304 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

speaks of the ammunition of the Gneisenau being 
exhausted before the end of the Battle of the Falkland 
Islands. 

Lord Fisher returned to office as First Sea Lord the 
day before the action off Coronel was fought. Not a 
moment was lost by the vigorous old seaman, when the 
news came, in making his dispositions to avenge and 
repair the disaster. The parent of the battle-cruiser 
had the weapon ready to his hand, now to be used for 
the purpose he had designed her for. The Invincible 
and the Inflexible were ordered to the Pacific immedi- 
ately, Admiral Sturdee being appointed to the com- 
mand. To all representations as to the need for a refit 
the answer was returned, "Go, and go quickly." The 
squadron donned the cap of darkness and the shoes of 
swiftness. As it went the still, small voice of the wire- 
less called to it all the ships which were cruising in the 
South Atlantic and Pacific. Kent, Carnarvon, Cornwall, 
Glasgow, and Bristol flocked from all quarters to the 
flag, with the Canopus and auxiliary cruiser Macedonia. 
The Australia raced across the Pacific along with the 
Japanese; but they were too late for a share in the grand 
event. On December 7th, Admiral Sturdee arrived at 
the Falkland Islands and there assembled his squadron. 

Admiral Graf von Spee had taken similar action. 
He had called to him the Nilrnberg, Dresden, and Leipsic, 
together with some colliers. It is thought that his 
destination was South Africa, where the German colon- 
ists were resisting Botha, and where there had lately 
been an outbreak of rebellion among the unreconciled 
element of the Dutch population. Had he arrived in 
those waters the mischief he would have done might 
have been incalculable. But his lucky star had set. 
He decided on his way to look in at the Falkland Islands 



THE VALLEY OP DECISION 305 

and destroy the wireless station. On the morning of 
December 8th the Gneisenau and Nurnberg approached 
to reconnoitre. They found the Canopus, which opened 
fire upon them at 11,000 yards, and the Kent lying at 
the entrance to Port William as guard-ship. They 
stood in to engage, expecting, probably, an easy repeti- 
tion of the Coronel victory. Then they saw the masts 
of the Invincible and Inflexible, recognised the trap 
into which they had fallen, and retreated at full speed 
to warn their consorts. The British fleet got under 
way, and a stern chase followed. The Germans scat- 
tered, but the Kent, Cornwall, and Glasgow accounted 
for the Nurnberg and Leipsic, while the battle-cruisers 
and Carnarvon went after the armoured ships. The 
Dresden alone of the German squadron escaped, to meet 
her fate a few months later off the Island of St. Juan 
Fernandez. The fight between the battle-cruisers 
and the armoured cruisers was a long-drawn-out 
business, for the former made no attempt to close, but 
made use of their superiority in gun-power and speed to 
destroy their opponents at a range at which they ran 
little risk of incurring severe injuries themselves. The 
tactical theory on which they were designed was bril- 
liantly vindicated on this occasion. But it must be 
remembered that neither succour nor escape was 
possible to the Germans. Admiral Sturdee always 
retained the power to close if there was the smallest 
indication of a change of weather, or if visibility should 
deteriorate from any cause. At 4.17 the Scharnhorst 
sank with all hands, the gallant von Spee, who had 
shown himself throughout an honourable enemy, going 
down with her. At six o'clock the Gneisenau idHowed 
her, having fought a single-handed battle for nearly 
two hours. Less than two hundred officers and men 



3o6 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

were saved. Two transports or colliers were destroyed 
by the Bristol and Macedonia. 

The operations which ended in the destruction of 
Admiral von Spec's squadron remain the most brilHant 
and decisive of the war at sea. Full credit must be 
given to those who hunted the German squadron out of 
the seas where it would have found most opportunities 
of mischief, both by direct action and by forming a 
point d'appui for the light cruisers of the enemy. But 
above all else stands out the sureness of touch with 
which the veteran seaman, Lord Fisher, solved the 
problem of being in superior force at the decisive point. 
The actual meeting at the Falkland Islands has the 
dramatic touch about it .which, according to disposition, 
we may call fortuitous or Providentiail. But the uner- 
ring reading of von Spec's mind, the instant decision and 
the sure adjustment of means to the end all lend to the 
British strategy a touch of genius. Sturdee's ships, 
dependent on coal supply for their motive power, were 
lost to sight for a month as completely as were Nelson's 
in the chase after Villeneuve. But whereas the Admir- 
alty were as much in ignorance of the whereabouts 
of the latter as were the public, the secret, noiseless 
whispers of the wireless not only kept Whitehall fully 
informed of all that was passing, but also summoned all 
the British ships within the area to the fateful rendez- 
vous. The Battle of the Falkland Islands put an end 
at once to all hope of German support which the 
disaffected within the Empire might have cherished, 
and set free the British Navy outside the Grand Fleet 
for any work it might be called upon to do. There 
was soon plenty ready to its hand. 

The havoc wrought by German light cruisers on 
British shipping in the first phase of the war was by no 



THE VALLEY OF DECISION 307 

means negligible. The Emden, in particular, boldly and 
skilfully handled, not only sank seventeen vessels worth 
over two millions sterling, but even bombarded a part of 
Madras, and sank a small Russian cruiser and a French 
destroyer at Penang. On November 9th, however, she 
was caught by the Australian cruiser, Sydney, off Cocos 
Keeling Island and destroyed. The Sydney, with other 
light cruisers, was engaged in convoying Australasian 
troops — a touch-and-go business under the circum- 
stances. The destruction of the famous raider was a 
very decided relief, especially as, about the same time, 
the Konigsberg, which had sunk the small cruiser Pegasus 
off Zanzibar, was driven into the Rufigi River, and there 
held a captive till she was destroyed some months later 
in a curious action in which a monitor and a seaplane 
bore part. The Karlsruhe, operating in the Atlantic, 
also destroyed seventeen ships, valued at a million and 
a half, before she met with a mysterious end. The 
Ntirnberg, Dresden, and Leipsic were less successful, 
the chief feat of the first-named being the cutting of 
the submarine cable at Fanning Island. Two auxiliary 
cruisers, however, the Kronprinz Wilhelm and Prinz Ei- 
tel Friedrich, sank between them twenty-four ships, 
worth about a million and three-quarters. They both 
interned themselves when they had exhausted their 
means of obtaining supplies. But another, the Kaiser 
Wilhelm der Grosse, was sunk in action by the Highflyer 
off the coast of Morocco, and the Cap Trafalgar was 
destroyed by the auxiliary cruiser, Carmania, after a 
spirited and well-fought action in which the victor very 
nearly shared the fate of her victim. 

Since the Dresden was destroyed, the efforts of the 
Germans in the outer seas, so far as above-water craft 
are concerned, have been confined to raids by disguised 



3o8 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

vessels of uncertain type, one (or two) of which have 
been known by the name of Mowe. This vessel (or 
these vessels), most ably commanded by Count von 
und zu Dohna-Schlodien, did heavy damage, and 
succeeded in getting at least one prize back into a 
German port. Another ship, the Grief, was discovered 
and sunk before she could get out to the trade routes. 
She succeeded in torpedoing her assailant, the auxiliary 
cruiser, Alcantara, before she succumbed. A sailing 
ship, to which the name Seeadler has been given, 
has also caused considerable havoc, chiefly by means of 
mines, as far east as Colombo, The deeds of all these 
vessels put together, however, by no means approach 
the loss we suffered from cruisers and privateers during 
our most victorious wars in the past, and even after our 
greatest successes. Further discussion on the war 
against commerce must, however, be postponed till a 
later chapter. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE MAIN FLEETS 

The activities of British cruisers in all parts of the 
world were thus efficacious in clearing the seas of enemy 
surface-craft, in permitting the safe transport of many 
hundred thousands of troops, and in clearing the way for 
offensive operations both by land and sea. Their 
success in this depended on the soundness of the dis- 
positions which held the main fleets in a clamp of steel 
and denied ingress and egress to and from the enemy's 
ports to vessels of all kinds. This was the root principle 
of the strategy inherited by us from the past : the mod- 
ern application of Drake's plan of "impeaching" 
the enemy off his own ports. To observe the enemy 
fleet from a central position, whence any threatened 
point could be speedily reached and the foe be. brought 
to action if he should expose himself, was once again the 
plan adopted by the Admiralty. Togo's strategy in the 
Russo-Japanese War had shown how that plan needed 
to be modified in the face of modern material. In the 
days of Cornwallis the heavy ships had nothing to fear 
but a lee shore and the land batteries of the defenders. 
They could only be attacked by their like, which was ex- 
actly the contingency which they hoped to bring about. 
They could, therefore, lie in as close proximity to the 
port they were appointed to watch as facilities for 

309 



310 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

getting the requisite supplies permitted and the cunning 
of the Admiral's brain dictated. 

The addition of the torpedo, carried in a swarm of 
light and fast craft operating on the surface, or in vessels 
moving invisible beneath the waters, and the fact that a 
consumable store like coal or oil has taken the place of 
the wind, which is Nature's gift, compelled a modi- 
fication of this simple plan. Togo kept his fleet at "a 
certain place" some sixty miles away from Port Arthur, 
keeping the fortress under observation by his light craft. 
The British Admiralty adopted a similar plan. The 
problem before them must now be briefly stated. 

The British battle-fleet was confronted by a force 
numerically a httle more than half as strong as itself in 
ships of the first line. But these were a well-organised 
fleet, provided with all the necessary subsidiary craft in 
adequate numbers, and aided by the possession of a 
means of aerial reconnaissance which the British were 
without, namely, the famous Zeppelin airships. More- 
over, the base of the German fleet was that expanse of 
intricate water, aptly described as the "wet triangle," 
over which the Island of Heligoland stands sentinel. 
The strategical importance of the island has, perhaps, 
been over-estimated ; but it has a value as an advanced 
torpedo-base, and also as a rallying point for skirmishing 
craft, as was proved by the "Battle of the Bight, " and 
for heavy ships driven back after an unsuccessful 
engagement. The mouths of the Elbe and Weser, with 
Jahde Bay, not only contain the strongly fortified naval 
ports of Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven, and Brunsbuttel, 
but also the entrance to the passage connecting the 
front door with the back, the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, 
which joins the North Sea ports to the great Baltic 
port and dockyard at Kiel. 



THE MAIN FLEETS 311 

The British fleet, then, had to watch two exits : that 
from the "wet triangle" and that from the Baltic 
through the Skager Rak. It had also to face the 
possibility that, utilising its back-door, the German 
fleet might go east to attack the Russians, whose naval 
force at the outbreak of war was in no wise equal to 
a single-handed contest with the Germans. Events 
might at any time have rendered it imperative for the 
British to enter the Baltic at all costs and go to the 
succour of the Russians, threatened with a land and sea 
attack which, if successful, would bring the Germans 
within easy striking distance of Petrograd. Its own 
problems were, roughly, twofold. It had to cover the 
coast of Britain and the vast stretch of sea from the 
north of the British Islands to the edge of the Arctic 
Circle. The North Sea may be compared to a pyramid 
standing on its apex. The distance from Wilhelmshaven 
to Flamborough Head being about 300 sea-miles, and 
that from Dover to Calais 22 miles. If the Germans 
were to be prevented from enjoying the use of the sea, it 
is obvious that a position had to be found as a base 
for the British fleet which would cover the route 
north-about. This would necessarily leave the Ger- 
mans nearer to the mouth of the Thames (to treat 
that as the vital spot) than the British fleet. On the 
other hand, the journey to and from the English coast 
would be longer than that from the British base to the 
entrance to the "wet triangle." There was, therefore, 
a reasonable certainty that if the Germans undertook 
any serious enterprise to the southward they would be 
met and fought before they could return. The worst 
danger to be feared was that they would carry out 
what have come to be known, from a phrase of Admiral 
Jellicoe's, as "tip-and-run raids." A well-organised 



312 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

system of flotilla defence would minimise that danger. 
The place selected was a land-locked basin in the Ork- 
neys, known as Scapa Flow. It is something over 500 
miles from Wilhelmshaven and about 400 from the 
Skager Rak. It is, therefore, well out of range of a 
night attack by torpedo-boats, and it covers the passage 
north-about. The battle-cruiser fleet was stationed 
in the Firth of Forth, being thus a hundred miles 
nearer the German bases and 150 miles nearer the 
mouth of the Thames. Translating distance into 
hours, and allowing for the superior speed of the battle- 
cruisers, it may be said to have been nine hours nearer to 
the former, and ten and a half nearer to the latter. 

Regard the North Sea as the Channel, the stretch of 
water from the Orkneys to the Arctic Circle as the 
Atlantic, and the Baltic as the Mediterranean, and the 
watch off the "wet triangle" does not differ fundamen- 
tally from the watch off Brest. We had, however, no 
base inside the Baltic from which to watch Kiel and 
prevent the enemy fleet from acting to the eastward as 
Nelson watched Toulon. The German fleet, besides, 
was concentrated instead of being divided between sev- 
eral different ports with no communication with each 
other except by way of the open sea, and it had the 
power to strike either east or west without our having 
immediate knowledge of its intentions. But the principle 
is the same. It was the enemy fleet which was watched, 
and not the coast which was guarded. 

The choice of Scapa Flow for the base of the battle- 
fleet has been much criticised ; but, on the wider outlook, 
it was probably sound. At first sight, perhaps, it seems 
an inversion of common sense to put the fastest and 
least powerful ships in the closest proximity to the 
enemy ports, while retaining the slower and more 



THE MAIN FLEETS 313 

powerful to deal with a possible attempt to break out 
to the north. But the fastest ships were best qualified 
to deal with the kind of raids which the Germans 
actually undertook, and they were best qualified also if 
the enemy should come out in force to the southward 
to overtake him and fight a delaying action until the 
battle-fleet could come up. On the other hand, if 
the Germans designed to get their cruisers out on to the 
high seas, they would probably employ their battleship 
strength in order to force a passage for them. Some 
such design seems to have, in fact, brought on the Battle 
of Jutland Bank. 

Having failed in their first endeavour to reduce the 
British fleet by "attrition," the Germans next at- 
tempted to disarrange our plans and to force us to dissi- 
pate our strength by a series of raids against our coast. 
The first of these, undertaken against Yarmouth, was a 
ludicrous failiu-e. Five cruisers took part, but, so far 
as is known, the battle-cruisers were not out on this 
occasion. They attacked the little gunboat Halcyon, 
which signalled to the nearest base, "Am engaging 
five German cruisers. Enemy retiring." They then 
opened a furious cannonade in the direction of Yar- 
mouth. Most of their shells fell a mile short. In the 
faint Hght of dawn they were that much out in their 
reckoning. British forces were approaching, and they 
fled incontinently. On their way the rearmost cruiser 
dropped mines, which destroyed submarine D 5. But 
that loss was more than offset by the destruction of the 
armoured cruiser Yorck, which hit a mine and foundered 
just as she was entering Jahde Bay. 

On December i6th a similar attempt was made 
against Scarborough, Whitby, and the Hartlepools, 
which resulted in the death of over a hundred civilians, 



314 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

men, women, and children. Apparently the whole 
battle-cruiser force of the Germans took part in this. 
They were engaged by a flotilla of destroyers, which 
they blundered into in the mist, and also by a Hght 
battery at Hartlepool. Whether they suffered any 
material damage or not is not known, but a careful 
study of the German casualty lists revealed the fact 
that they had over two hundred killed and wounded. 
So the "baby-killers," as Mr. Churchill promptly 
dubbed them, had by no means the best of the deal. 
Only a thick fog- which, unhappily, intervened saved 
them from the hand of Sir David Beatty and his "Cat" 
squadron. The German and British squadrons were 
actually within gunshot of each other. The occasion 
was marked by the publication of a clear and strong 
statement by the Admiralty, warning the population 
that coast towns could not be guaranteed immunity 
from such attacks; that their inhabitants must bear in 
mind that they had no military results ; and that, while 
the Admiralty regretted the circumstances, they must 
not be allowed to modify the general naval policy which 
was being pursued. It is said that the sceva indignatio 
roused by this wanton destruction of defenceless life 
was worth an army corps to the New Armies. At any 
rate, the spirit displayed by the sufferers was beyond 
praise. 

Sir David Beatty was compensated for his disap- 
pointment on January 24th, when the Germans, intent, 
presumably, on a similar exploit, were met by the 
British battle-cruiser squadron near the Dogger Bank. 
The enemy force consisted of three battle-cruisers, 
Derfflinger, Seydlitz, and MoUke, and the armoured 
cruiser Blilcher, a ship of an inferior type, built by 
the Germans as a reply to the Invincible class, under a 



THE MAIN FLEETS 315 

misapprehension of what their design was to be. She 
carried only 8.2-inch guns, and was a drag on the squad- 
ron. What had become of the fourth German battle- 
cruiser, Von der Tann, has never been revealed. It is 
thought that she was severely injured, probably by 
collision, on the occasion of the Christmas Day air raid 
on Cuxhaven. There is good reason for thinking 
that she took part in the Battle of Jutland Bank. 

Beatty followed the enemy in general chase, his 
flagship, Lion, leading. Deliberate fire was opened at 
eighteen thousand yards, and the official report says, 
"We began hitting at seventeen thousand yards. " The 
Bliicher, which was the last of the German line, received 
the fire of each ship as she passed, was reduced to a 
sinking condition by gunfire, and eventually torpedoed 
by the Arethusa. The Derfflinger and Seydlitz also re- 
ceived severe damage, and were seen to be heavily on 
fire. But an unlucky shot disabled the Lion, which had 
to sheer out of line. Submarines were about and the 
position of the vessel was dangerous, but she was well 
screened by the destroyers, and escaped further injury. 
Beatty shifted his flag first to a destroyer and then to 
the Princess Royal. But the battle had gone roaring to 
the east, and before the resolute young Admiral could 
again take command the action had been broken off. 
The Germans claimed a victory; but as their claim was 
dependent on the utterly false assertion that they had 
sunk the Lion and Tiger, its baselessness was easily 
exposed. 

The battle was one of the most picturesque in all 
naval history. The battle-cruisers flew through the 
water at twenty-eight or twenty-nine knots, and the 
destroyers dashed hither and thither at even greater 
speed. A general chase under such circumstances 



3i6 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

needs the most exceptional quickness of mind on the 
part of the Admiral in command and of every captain in 
the fleet. Action was, apparently, broken off seventy 
miles from Heligoland, and it is not therefore surprising 
that many people should hold that a little more deter- 
mination and readiness to take risks on the part of the 
second in command when Beatty was temporarily out 
of action would have brought about a more decisive 
result. Only those who are in possession of the secret 
information held by the Admiralty can express an 
opinion on that point. The battle-cruiser, at any rate, 
justified her existence, and the theories of those who 
insisted on the value of the heaviest guns and of superior 
speed were justified. 

The heavy ships of the Germans made one more 
attempt to raid the coast, attacking Lowestoft and, 
again, Yarmouth at Easter, 191 6. Little damage was 
done, but the battle-cruiser squadron failed to come up 
with them, and, under the Board of Admiralty which 
succeeded Mr. Winston Churchill and Lord Fisher, 
there was an unfortunate appearance of yielding some- 
thing to this kind of terrorism. Certain alterations 
were made in the disposition of the fleet. But this was 
not, in itself, so serious as the admission in a letter from 
the First Lord, Mr. Balfour, to the mayors of the two 
towns that the Admiralty could now be brought to con- 
sider the question of local protection apart from the 
general strategy of the war at sea. On the other hand, 
there was some evidence that "tip-and-run raids" were 
not improving the morale of the German Navy. A 
German prisoner captured about this time is said to 
have replied to some comments on the poor shooting 
of the German battle-cruisers by naively remarking, 
"How can you expect us to shoot well when we may 



THE MAIN FLEETS 317 

have the British fleet upon us at any moment?" 
Whatever truth there may be in the story, it is certain 
that on more than one occasion the German gunners 
have shown a tendency to go to pieces after the first 
few salvoes when the British return fire became hot. 
To fire on defenceless places and to turn tail directly 
there is a chance of meeting a foe who can hit back 
never can conduce to a high military spirit. The same 
inefficiency has been noticed in the U-boats when they 
meet an armed antagonist. 

On May 31, 19 16, the main fleets met for the first 
time. The German battle-cruisers had steamed north 
up the coast of Jutland to the neighbourhood of the 
Skager Rak. They chased off some of our Hght cruisers 
which were watching the exit from the Baltic, and these 
were followed by the light and battle-cruisers to the 
eastward. The British battle-fleet, with a battle- 
cruiser squadron under Admiral the Hon. Horace Hood, 
consisting of the Inflexible, Indomitable, and Invincible 
(flag), and an armoured cruiser squadron, consisting of 
the Defence (flag). Black Prince, Warrior, and Duke of 
Edinburgh, under Sir Robert Arbuthnot, was to the 
north. Eastward was Sir David Beatty, having un- 
der his command the battle-cruiser fleet, consisting 
of the Lion (flag) Tiger, Princess Mary, Princess 
Royal (flag). New Zealand (flag), and Indefatigable. 
He had also with him four ships of the Queen Eliza- 
beth class, with some divisions of light cruisers and 
destroyers. The Queen Elizabeth herself and the Aus- 
tralia were absent. 

The German battle-cruisers, chasing'our light cruisers, 
found themselves in the presence of Beatty's force, 
and turned to run for it with the object of drawing 
him down on to the German battle-fleet, which was 



3i8 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

following in support from the southward. A running 
action ensued, in which the destroyers played a dashing 
part, attacking the big ships in broad daylight and fight- 
ing miniature fleet actions among themselves. Towards 
the middle of the afternoon the light cruisers, scout- 
ing ahead of the battle-cruisers, came within range of 
the German battle-fleet. The British sustained severe 
loss in the first part of the action, the Queen Mary and 
Indefatigable being sunk. The Queen Elizabeths could 
not get near enough to play a decisive part. Now, 
both fleets went about, Beatty, in his turn, trying to 
draw the Germans on to the British battle-fleet, the 
approach of which had been signalled. The running 
fight between the battle-cruisers continued, while the 
Queen Elizabeths engaged the battleships at long range. 
The weather conditions, unfortunately, now became 
unfavourable, with patches of fog and low visibility. 
On ascertaining the approach of Admiral Jellicoe the 
Germans sheered off to the eastward, with the obvious 
intention of evading battle and returning home along 
the Danish coast. The movement was frustrated by a 
splendid act of self-sacrifice on the part of Admiral 
Hood. His battle-cruisers, steaming south-south-west, 
had come on ahead of the battle-fleet and appeared on 
the scene just as Beatty, on the outer edge of the circle, 
was losing his position abeam of the German battle- 
cruisers. Hood threw himself across the head of the 
enemy's line by a movement which recalls that of Nel- 
son at St. Vincent, and endured in his flagship the concen- 
trated fire of the battle-cruiser squadron and the leading 
German battleships. The fire of the Invincible was 
noticeably effective, but the odds were too heavy for 
her, and she blew up and foundered, carrying with her 
a heroic seaman who, in this one short fight, outshone 



THE MAIN FLEETS 319 

the deeds of the famous sailors from whom he was 
descended. Only the commander escaped. 

The Invincible did not perish in vain. Time was 
gained; Beatty enveloped the head of the enemy line, 
and Jellicoe, now able to solve the difficulties of the situ- 
ation and to form his line, bore down upon them. The 
British, however, had still to suffer severe loss before 
darkness closed in. Sir Robert Arbuthnot, a hard- 
bitten sailor of impetuous temperament, either by acci- 
dent or design, thrust his squadron of armoured 
cruisers between the British and German battle-fleets at 
close range to the latter. His flagship, the Defence, 
was instantly sunk, and he went down with her. 
The Warrior sank in tow shortly afterward, and the 
Black Prince was badly crippled, forced to leave the 
line, and torpedoed during the night. The Marl- 
borough, a Dreadnought battleship, was also torpe- 
doed, but it was brought safely into port under her 
own steam. 

By now, however, the Germans were a beaten fleet. 
All semblance of formation was lost. The ships scat- 
tered and made for their home ports as best they could, 
furiously assailed all through the night by the British 
light cruisers and destroyers. It is further evidence of 
the German tendency to go to pieces when the odds turn 
against them that, after Hood's attack had foiled their 
plan of escape, our light cruisers never hesitated to 
attack their battleships, and that they did so with 
impunity. The pursuit only ended with the morning, 
when the British found themselves in the neighbourhood 
of the German mine-fields, behind which the battered 
enemy had withdrawn. Jellicoe remained at hand, 
searching for stragglers all day, and then returned to his 
base, whence he reported himself again ready for action 



320 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

thirty-six hours later. It took the enemy months to 
repair the damage, so far as it was reparable. 

The losses on the British side, which were chiefly 
incurred in the holding attacks necessary to bring the 
German main fleet to action, were three battle-cruisers, 
three armoured cruisers, and eight destroyers sunk. 
The Germans only admitted the loss of a pre- 
Dreadnought battleship of the Deutschland class, one 
battle-cruiser {Lutzow), three light cruisers, and a few 
torpedo-boats or destroyers. The British claim to have 
sunk two battleships of the Kaiser class (Dreadnoughts), 
one of the Deutschland class, one battle-cruiser, five 
light cruisers, six torpedo-boats, and a submarine. Sir 
John Jellicoe's despatch adds that one Dreadnought 
battleship, one battle-cruiser, and three torpedo-boats 
were so badly damaged that it is doubtful if they could 
reach port. One of these was presimiably the battle- 
cruiser Seydlitz, which was put ashore by the Germans 
in the Bight of Heligoland, but eventually salved and 
towed into Wilhelmshaven in a plight which makes it 
doubtful if she will see any more service. The British 
figure of German losses may fairly be taken as a mini- 
mum. As a rule, a routed fleet suffers more heavily in 
its flight than in the earlier part of the action, and, as the 
Germans were relentlessly pursued and attacked all 
through the night, it is hardly likely that they escaped 
further losses. But the darkness prevented the British 
from ascertaining these, and gave the Germans an 
opportunity to conceal them. 

Take any test you please, and the Battle of Jutland 
Bank stands declared a British victory. Take losses of 
ships, the test which the public most readily applies. 
The Germans lost two Dreadnought battleships, the 
British none. A German squadron was spoiled thereby, 



THE MAIN FLEETS 321 

and the huge preponderance possessed by the British 
increased. The Germans lost one battle-cruiser out of 
five, and the British three out of ten — no account is 
taken of ships completed since the outbreak of war — so 
that, while the margin of superiority is infinitesimally 
reduced, it is still sufficient. If the Seydlitz be really 
an irreparable wreck, the British preponderance — ^which 
stood at two to one before the battle — is actually 
increased. In light cruisers the Germans lost five, 
against which we may set the three armoured cruisers 
lost by the British, for these vessels are really of Httle 
more consequence. Only in destroyers was the British 
loss a serious matter from a military point of view. But 
destroyers must be sacrificed if destroyer work is to be 
done effectually, and there can be no question that the 
work of the flotillas, both offensive and defensive, more 
than repaid the loss they suffered. 

Or take the objects for which the battle was fought. 
The ultimate object of any encounter between the fleets 
must be, for the Germans, to regain the free use of the 
sea in order to relieve their necessities at home and to 
enable them to deliver a blow at our heart; for the 
British, to prevent the Germans from gaining that use 
of the sea. Decisive victory for either side means the 
destruction of the enemy fleet. Short of that, victory 
rests with the British if they prevent their enemy from 
regaining the use of the sea. In the actual event the 
Germans probably had a more limited purpose. They 
may have desired to break a way for some of their 
cruisers to get out and harry the trade routes, or they 
may have meant to compass the destruction of Admiral 
Beatty's battle-cruisers by drawing them on to the 
battle-fleet. They have never revealed what the "en- 
terprise to the northward" was on which they professed 



322 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

to be engaged. But, whatever their purpose was, they 
indubitably failed to achieve it. No cruisers appeared 
on the high seas; the battle-cruiser fleet was not de- 
stroyed. And the Germans, whatever their object, cer- 
tainly did not mean to return weaker than they set out. 

From another point of view the British victory is 
equally clear. The British remained in possession of the 
field of battle; the German formation was broken up, 
and their morale, at least temporarily, destroyed. That, 
perhaps, is the most important point of all. The case 
may be summed up in homely analogy. If a little boy 
engaged in robbing an orchard be chased thence by the 
owner with a big stick, the owner may remain in posses- 
sion of the orchard, but the little boy may have the 
apples. The barren fact of victory rests with one side, 
the fruit with the other. But if the boy is compelled to 
leave the orchard without the apples, he can hardly claim 
victory on the ground that he is still able to sit down 
without undue discomfort. The German claim to vic- 
tory in the Battle of Jutland can only be maintained on 
such a posteriori grounds. 

On the other hand, the British victory was not so 
decisive as a people nourished on the traditions of the 
Nile and Trafalgar were inclined to expect. A con- 
siderable amount of criticism has arisen from that fact, 
and rather loose comparisons have been made with the 
victories of Hawke and Nelson. In point of fact, these 
comparisons are misleading. At Quiberon Bay, Con- 
flans did not retreat to his base at Brest, where he 
would have been under the shelter of [the shore guns. 
He fled pell-mell into an undefended roadstead where 
the only dangers encountered in following him were 
the dangers of a lee shore, the darkness and the gale. 
Hawke, a consummate seaman» knew the coast as well 



, THE MAIN FLEETS 323 

as Conflans. He "took the foe for pilot" because the 
dangers were inanimate dangers, and at fixed points. 
The chances were equal for the two sides. To follow 
the Germans into their protected area was a very 
different matter. Moreover, magnificent as was the 
victory of Quiberon Bay, the loss of the enemy in action 
was actually small. Their fleet was annihilated because 
half the surviving vessels was mewed up in the Vilaine, 
where it had no facilities for repair or supplies. The 
German fleet, after its return to the Bight of Heligoland, 
had all the German bases at its back. 

At the Nile the French fleet was, to all practical 
purposes, destroyed. But Nelson had full opportunity 
to weigh the position before he attacked, and he acted 
upon one of those brilliant intuitions of genius which 
show when safety lies in taking apparent risks. Brueys 
delivered himself into the hands of the British in a way 
which can only be called imbecile. The Germans acted 
throughout on a considered plan, the ultimate object 
of which was to draw Sir John Jellicoe on to do just 
that which he refused to do, and is blamed in some 
quarters for not doing. It is to be remembered, more- 
over, that, after the confused night action, he had no 
certain knowledge of the dispositions of the enemy fleet. 
The circumstances of Trafalgar were even more dis- 
similar. It is sufficient to point out that, in that 
case, Villeneuve was driven to sea by the express orders 
of Napoleon and by despair at the news that he had 
been relieved of his command for hesitation to obey. 
He came out with the purpose of fighting a decisive 
action, and he fought it stubbornly to the point 
of annihilation. The Germans, as their movements 
showed, had no intention of fighting the entire Grand 
Fleet to a finish. 



324 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

If we ttirn from these three crushing victories to 
others of fame in our annals, we shall find that the result 
of Jutland Bank compares very favourably with them, 
if we allow for certain facts. Wooden ships were rarely 
sunk in action. On the other hand, fighting at short 
range and even yard-arm to yard-arm, the slaughter 
was often so great as to demoralise the crews and bring 
about the surrender of the ship. In a modern action, 
fought at long range, with the crews in armoured 
positions, damage to material, causing fire and explo- 
sion which, possibly, end in the destruction of the ship, is 
the more frequent result. That the fighting spirit of a 
ship's company should be so demoralised by the fire 
of an opponent ten thousand yards away that she should 
surrender, unless cut off and surrounded, with her 
motive power disabled, is almost unthinkable. Even 
under the latter circumstances, the commanding officer 
would probably order the destruction of the ship. The 
whole standard, therefore, by which we judge actions 
like The Saints, or the Glorious First of June is altered. 
The criterion of surrender, which was the best evidence 
of the moral superiority established by the British 
in these actions is absent from Jutland Bank. The 
evidence of demoralisation is of a different kind, but it 
is clear enough, and it may be said, without any fear of 
exaggeration, that the victory won by Sir John Jellicoe 
and Sir David Beatty was at least as complete as though 
won by Rodney and Howe, or gained in many another 
battle which resulted in two or three prizes being taken, 
but, in many cases had important strategical results — 
e. g., Saumarez's action with Linois off Algeciras in 1801. 

Let it be granted, as everyone must grant, that the 
complete destruction of the enemy fleet is the best and 
surest way to gain control of the sea. Let it be granted 



THE MAIN FLEETS 325 

also that, until the enemy fleet is destroyed, it is not 
strictly correct to speak of either combatant having 
"command of the sea. " Does that make the destruc- 
tion of the enemy fleet an object to be pursued at any 
risk? With due deference to some distinguished naval 
officers who appear to think that it does, it is sub- 
mitted that such was not the practice of the great 
masters of naval war. In May, 1805, Ganteaume, by 
Napoleon's instructions, left the inner anchorage of 
Brest and anchored outside the Goulet Passage under 
the protection of batteries mounting 150 heavy guns 
which had been erected for the purpose. Neither 
Cornwallis nor Gardner, who was in command during 
the absence of the former through illness, made any 
attempt to attack until August, when, hearing that 
Villeneuve was at sea, Ganteaume weighed and stood 
out as if to engage. When Cornwallis took up the 
challenge, he thought better of it and returned. Corn- 
wallis followed him and engaged his rear, but, coming 
under the fire of the shore batteries, desisted from the 
attack. For batteries read minefields and submarines, 
and the policy pursued by Sir John Jellicoe is clearly 
identical with that of Cornwallis, a hard-fighting old 
seaman whom no one has ever accused of undue caution. 
Nelson's conduct off Toulon was precisely of the same 
cautious kind. The story of the game of bluff played 
by him and Admiral Latouche - Treville in 1804 
makes amusing reading, but it is quite conclusive as 
to the principles which guided him. "My friend, 
M. Latouche, sometimes plays bo-peep in and out of 
Toulon, like a mouse at the edge of her hole," he 
writes, and, again: "Yesterday a rear-admiral and 
seven sail, including frigates, put their nose outside the 
harbour. If they go on playing this game, some day we 



326 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

shall lay salt upon their tails, and so end the campaign. " 
He put Bickerton, with five sail, close to the harbour to 
draw the French out, a "method to make M. Latouche 
angry ' ' ; but he himself kept twenty leagues away. And 
he cHnches the matter in the following passage: 

I think their fleet will be ordered out to fight close to 
Toulon, that they may get their crippled ships in again, 
and that we must then quit the coast to repair our damages 
and thus leave the coast clear ; but my mind is fixed not to 
fight them, unless with a westerly wind outside the Hyeres and 
with an easterly wind to the westward of Sicie. 

Finally, M. Latouche did something characteristic- 
ally German. He came out with his whole force as if 
to offer battle, but retired under the guns of Toulon on 
Nelson's approach. He then made a report that Nelson 
had run away from him, adding that he pursued till 
nightfall, and, next morning, could not see the enemy. 
Nelson's wrath knew no bounds. "You will have seen 
M. Latouche's letter, of how he chased me and I ran, " 
he writes. "I keep it; and, by God, if I take him, he 
shall eat it ! " But M. Latouche died shortly afterwards 
from another cause. 

Minefields, destroyers, and submarines are more for- 
midable to a battle-fleet than shore batteries. Yet we 
see that CornwaUis and Nelson steadfastly refused to be 
drawn into action under the shore guns, while Hawke 
readily accepted it when and where there were no 
batteries to be feared. To hold that battle is in itself 
the end at which a commander should aim is as unsound 
as to hold that war can be made without taking risks. 
Those who accuse Sir John Jellicoe of thinking of the 
safety of the fleet rather than of victory are not only 
doing an injustice to an officer whose qualities of courage 



THE MAIN FLEETS 327 

and resolution have been ofttimes tested, but are guilty 
of very shallow criticism. If the enemy's whole fleet 
consist of ten vessels, it is worth while to lose twenty in 
destroying the ten. But if there is a strong probability 
that a part at least of his force will escape, while the 
attacking fleet will lose so heavily that it will be left 
inferior to the survivors, then an attack shows not 
courage, but criminal folly. That such would be the 
result of engaging the Germans a outrance under condi- 
tions chosen by themselves is most probable. "That 
they may get their crippled ships in again, and that we 
must then quit the coast to repair our damages and 
thus leave the coast clear," was as plainly the object 
of the Germans in offering battle in proximity to their 
ports as it was the object of M. Latouche. The pros- 
pect is not made more seductive by the fact that, under 
modern conditions, there might be no ships to repair. 

The truth is that the critics think in the terms of 
time and space which belong to Nelson's day, not to our 
own. Nelson's position at twenty leagues from Toulon 
in his day, when all information had to be conveyed by 
frigate, and he was dependent on the wind to bear him 
to the decisive spot, was not so very far different from 
that of the Grand Fleet in relation to the German bases 
to-day, while his determination not to fight unless he 
could catch the enemy at a distance of ten to fifteen 
miles from Toulon is certainly not extravagantly 
translated into an intention not to begin an action 
within, let us say, a hundred to a hundred and fifty 
miles off the Bight of Heligoland. 

Nelson's principle was only to fight under conditions 
which gave him an assurance of decisive victory. That 
is plain no less from the tactics of Trafalgar, where he 
did fight, than from those employed off Toulon, where 



328 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

he did not. The whole of the order of attack at Trafal- 
gar was based on the idea of going down to the enemy 
in order of sailing, so as not to waste time in forming 
the line in light airs lest the day should prove too short 
for a decision. Nelson certainly never held the doctrine 
that a battle was an end in itself. On the return voyage 
from the West Indies, he was accustomed to say to his 
captains, speaking of the French fleet : 

If we meet them, we shall find them not less than eigh- 
teen, I rather think twenty, sail of the line, and therefore 
do not be surprised if I do not fall on them immediately; 
we won't part without a battle. I will let them alone until 
we approach the shores of Europe, or they give me an 
advantage too tempting to be resisted. 

He was in inferior force, and he would not fight at a dis- 
advantage, until all chance of reinforcements reaching 
him before the enemy made his own ports had vanished. 
Then he would attack, and sacrifice his fleet, if neces- 
sary, because, by so doing, he would reduce the strength 
of the enemy relatively to the British. His was not the 
fleet upon which the all of his country depended. He 
relied on his fleet taking heavier'toU than it paid, and 
knew that, by so much he would relieve his comrades- 
in-arms. He kept the ulterior objects steadily in view. 
But he avoided the mistake, which is what Mahan 
really criticises in the French school of naval strategy, 
of forgetting that all ulterior objects are best served by 
the destruction of the enemy's fleet, if an opportunity 
offers sufficiently advantageous to give a reasonable 
certainty of success. Until it is proved that such an 
opportunity of destroying the German fleet has been 
ofEered and refused, one is justified in maintaining 
that the strategy of the Admiralty and of Sir John 



THE MAIN FLEETS 329 

Jellicoe has been in accordance with the best doctrines 
of naval war as taught by its greatest professors. 

After the Battle of Jutland Bank the Germans made 
no further attempt to meet the British fleet in force, 
though, in an excursion, the details of which have never 
been made known, they succeeded in destroying two of 
our light cruisers by submarine attack. As, however, a 
Dreadnought battleship of theirs was twice torpedoed 
by one of our submarines, they suffered more heavily 
than they gained. On a later occasion also British sub- 
marines got torpedoes home on German battleships. 

The High Sea Fleet, however, remains a menace, and 
is the chief reason why we are unable to take completely 
effective measures to prevent German submarines from 
reaching the trade routes. The weapon employed for 
commerce destruction is new, and the method of its 
employment is an offence against God and man. But 
the old lessons which naval history has taught remain 
true: that the power to use the sea in war-time and 
the power to restrict the use of the sea alike depend on 
the existence of a fleet capable of fighting for suprem- 
acy. These matters, however, will be more fully dis- 
cussed in the next chapter. It remains to refer briefly 
to events in other seas in which fleets of heavy ships are 
employed. 

Both the French and the Russians have very largely 
increased their number of capital ships since the war be- 
gan. In the Black Sea the latter possess an undoubted 
supremacy of which it cannot be said they have made 
full use. Along the coast of Asia Minor their military 
operations were assisted by the fleet up to the fall of 
Trebizond, and it appeared likely that an adroit use of 
the tactics there employed might bring them to the head 
of the Bosporus. This hope has not been fulfilled, and, 



330 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

furthermore, the Russians failed to make use of their 
maritime superiority to frustrate the German and 
Bulgarian crossings of the Danube near its mouth and 
the consequent outflanking of the Rumanian armies. 
It was a severe disappointment to every believer in sea 
power to notice the absolute neglect of the means of 
defence afforded by the waterway of the Danube. 
The Russian Revolution and the light it has thrown 
on the chaotic internal condition of the country, 
however, go far to explain the reason. It emphasises 
once more the fact that the sea will not serve a tyrant. 
This is no mere rhetorical phrase. Since the Goeben 
was disabled and one or more of their own battle- 
cruisers were finished, the Russians have had no main 
fleet to face in the Black Sea, yet their own greatly 
superior navy has remained impotent. 

In the Baltic, as has been pointed out before, the 
situation is a curious one. By virtue of their back- 
door the Germans can, in theory, bring a vastly superior 
force to bear against the Russians. But the latter are, 
more or less, secure in the Gulf of Finland, and the 
Germans have not at present dared to risk decisive 
operations for fear of weakening their position in the 
North Sea. The Grand Fleet defends the gate of 
Petrograd. The Germans burned their fingers badly 
when they attempted conjoint operations against 
Riga in the summer of 1915, and, indeed, up to now, 
have met with nothing but misfortune in anything they 
have attempted in the only sea which they can claim to 
control. On the othej hand, the Russians have made 
no use of their opportunities for offensive action, if only 
on a small scale. Once again, the cause must be 
assigned to the internal condition of the country and 
the hostility and suspicions of Sweden which have 



THE MAIN FLEETS 33i 

hampered the Russian use of the sea from the first. It 
is perfectly true that the Russian battle-fleet in the 
Baltic, Hke the German in the North Sea is precluded 
from taking heavy risks for fear of "leaving the coast 
clear"; but our AUy is strong in torpedo-craft, and is 
better situated than any other member of the Alliance 
for forcing action on the Germans. The political 
consequences of successful activities would be such 
that a considerable amount of risk would be justified. 

In the Adriatic, the only other important scene of 
naval activity, the French and Italians have been 
content to blockade the Austrian fleet, suffering consider- 
able losses by submarine attack in the narrow waters. 
The attempt upon Cattaro in the earlier part of the 
war was feeble and irresolute, and the opportunity for 
more decisive action passed when the Montenegrins lost 
Mount Lovtcha, which commands the harbour. The 
geographical features of this sea have been explained in 
the chapter on the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. 
Now, as then, the ItaHans, for this purpose the succes- 
sors of the Venetians, are eager to obtain a foothold on 
its eastern shore. They have one, temporarily, at any 
rate, in Avlona, but political and national jealousies 
dominate the situation. If Trieste be taken, and the 
Istrian Peninsula fall into the hands of our Ally, the 
question of the Austrian fleet will be speedily solved. A 
successful advance of the Allies through Serbia, or the 
eUmination of Bulgaria from the war, might also render 
the naval positions of the Austrians untenable. 

The naval events of the war, in fact, have reinforced 
the lesson learned from the fate of Cervera's squadron 
in Santiago de Cuba and of the Russian fleet in Port 
Arthur, that a naval force which is unwilling to fight can 
only be compelled to do so — or perish if it does not — 



332 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

by the conjoint use of sea and land forces. It is no new 
fact, but one which, in early history, is obscured because 
the line of distinction between land and sea forces is 
narrow, and because, before the days of long-range 
weapons, actions were often fought within the harbours 
themselves. Salamis was brought about thus, and so 
was the Siege of Sebastopol. In our great wars with the 
French we should have done the same thing had we 
possessed the necessary land force. As it was, our fleets 
had to wait and watch until other conditions, operating, 
perhaps, at a great distance, compelled the enemy to 
sea. The development of aerial warfare may, perhaps, 
bring about a change. But that has not yet gone far 
enough, and the hopes which some built on the sub- 
marine and its possible use as a ferret have not, up to 
the present, been justified. The main fleets, therefore, 
act by a process of silent constriction which is elusive, 
though all pervading. This influence, however, is not 
confined to the stronger. The weaker fleets also exer- 
cise it in their degree, and, in considering what is to 
follow, it is important to recognise the difference 
between a fleet which will not and a fleet which can 
not fight. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CONCLUSION 

The use of the submarine by the Germans has raised 
questions, moral, military, and economic, to which vary- 
ing answers have been, and will, for a long time, be 
given. Up to the summer of 1914 the underwater boat 
was going through a process of evolution as a miHtary 
weapon which followed pretty closely that of the 
torpedo-boat and destroyer. Beginning as a mere 
engine of harbour defence, the weapon of the weaker 
Power, the submarine, thanks to engineering improve- 
ments, chiefly the perfecting of the heavy-oil engine, to 
optical science, and, above all, to the daring and skill 
of the young officers trained to use her, had become 
a sea- and even an ocean-going vessel of almost 
unlimited possibilities for offence and observation. 
British submarines, before and after the begin- 
ning of the war, made voyages to China, from 
Australia, and across the Atlantic. Within three hours 
after the beginning of hostilities they were, as Mr. 
Churchill informed the House of Commons, inside 
the Bight of HeHgoland, watching the movements of 
the German fleet, and they were used to guard the 
passage of the Army to France. The feat of Com- 
mander Holbrook, V.C, in diving under the Turkish 
minefield in the Dardanelles and torpedoing the battle- 

333 



334 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

ship Messudyeh, the actions of Commander Nasmyth 
in the Sea of Marmora, and many like exploits, seemed 
to confirm the hopes of those who believed that, in 
the submarine, we possessed a weapon which might 
be effectively used to drive a reluctant fleet out of 
harbour to battle. On the other hand, the Germans 
taught us lessons of caution. A single submarine, as 
the Germans claimed, destroyed the three armoured 
cruisers, Cressy, Hogue, and Aboukir, by the use of a 
decoy; the Pathfinder and Hermes fell victims to the 
same agency, and the Formidable (battleship) was 
torpedoed and sunk by an attack at night, when it 
was believed that the submarine must be too blind 
to be effective. 

On the other hand, the German harbours had proved 
impregnable to attack, and many attempts on our fleets 
at their bases were unsuccessful. Moreover, the main 
fleets, manoeuvring at high speed and well screened by 
destroyers, moved about the seas with impunity, while 
the underwater craft proved more vulnerable to the 
assaults of light cruisers than their more enthusiastic 
advocates had foreseen. As a military weapon, in 
fact, they proved effective, but not decisive. An armed 
and organised fleet had little to fear from them. 

But the successful attacks on the three cruisers and 
on the Formidable showed that, under certain condi- 
tions, they might be used with deadly effect in a war on 
commerce. Admiral Sir Percy Scott, writing to the 
Times a month or two before the war, pointed out the 
possibilities, and, though experience proved his theories 
wrong in many respects, especially as to the submarine 
compelling the withdrawal of the battle-squadrons from 
the seas, in others he proved an accurate seer of the 
things which were to come. The Germans were late 



CONCLUSION 335 

beginners with the weapon which they afterwards 
claimed as particularly their own. It is one of the 
ironies of war that Admiral von Tirpitz, the father of 
submarine piracy — a term which will be justified pres- 
ently—persistently deprecated the military value of 
the submarine until a comparatively short time before 
war broke out, with the consequence that Germany had 
only thirty completed boats in August, 1914. 

The various attempts at codifying the law, or, rather, 
the practice, of war at sea had left matters in a state 
of royal confusion. Without attempting a complete 
analysis, it may be said that enemy ships were Hable to 
capture and neutral ships were not, save under condi- 
tions shortly to be named. Under the Declaration of 
Paris, to which this country was a party, free ships made 
free goods— that is to say, enemy goods, except contra- 
band of war could not be captured in neutral ships — 
neutral goods in enemy ships were not liable to capture; 
privateering was abolished; blockade, to be binding up- 
on neutrals, must be effective— that is to say, a ship 
attempting to enter a blockaded port must be in real 
danger of capture, and must not be made prize as a 
punitive measure subsequent to the running of her cargo. 
Moreover, it was agreed by sundry of the Hague Con- 
ventions that ships seized by vessels of war must be 
brought into the Prize Court for adjudication, and 
might only be sunk in the case of urgent miHtary neces- 
sity, in which case their papers must be preserved and 
every provision made for the safety of their passen- 
gers and crews. If these conditions could not be com- 
plied with, the ships must be released. 

The flaws in this rough-and-ready code of rules are 
easily apparent. One or two only, which are relevant 
to the purpose of this chapter, need be mentioned. The 



336 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

definition of "contraband" was left to the discretion of 
the belligerent Powers, with the exception that certain 
articles ancipitis usus, of which the chief are foodstuffs, 
were declared contraband conditionally on their being 
consigned to the government of a belligerent for use by 
the armed forces. Again, no definition of "military 
necessity" was attempted, nor were any rules laid down 
as to what constituted adequate provision for the safety 
of passengers and crews in the case of ships destroyed. 
Furthermore, the definition of "effective blockade" 
was too loosely framed to cover the conditions which 
arose with the use of the submarine for this purpose. 

The Germans hypocritically pretended that they 
resorted to submarine war against merchantmen as a 
reprisal for the alleged illegal and inhuman action of 
Great Britain in cutting off imports of food, and thus, 
so it was alleged, starving German women and children. 
In point of fact — it is worth remembering — the Ger- 
mans by their own act in declaring war on Russia cut 
themselves off from the main source of their imports of 
breadstuffs, and, by forcing Turkey into the war, cut us 
also off from the same source of supply. Their demand, 
therefore, was that we should allow them free access 
to markets of which they made a comparatively small 
use in time of peace, there to compete with us, who used 
them largely and whose need was the greater on account 
of the closing of the Dardanelles. However, that point 
need not be laboured. It is enough to recall that, while 
the German cruisers were still at large, they deliberately 
sank all the vessels laden with foodstuffs destined 
for this country which they could capture, includ- 
ing the William P. Frye, an American sailing ship 
bound from Seattle to Liverpool with a cargo of wheat. 
Moreover, our Order in Council was not issued until 



CONCLUSION 337 

after the first submarine campaign had begun, and 
until the German Government had taken over the whole 
wheat supply of the country, thus acquiring the power 
to allot any proportion it thought good to the armies. 

The first submarine campaign began in February, 
191 5. It was ostensibly aimed only at British ships 
approaching or leaving the shores of this country. 
Neutrals were warned that accidents might occur, and 
"accidents" did. The war was conducted with abso- 
lute ruthlessness, ships being torpedoed without warn- 
ing, and the crews, in some instances, being shelled 
as they were leaving their vessels in their boats. The 
sinking of the Lusitania, with the consequent loss of 
1 100 lives, and of the cross-Channel steamer, Sussex, 
were the incidents which made the greatest impression 
on the world, but they were, in fact, no more atrocious 
than many other acts done by the Germans. The 
campaign in this form, however, was a total failure. 
The boats used for the purpose were small and designed 
for military purposes; they were extremely vulnerable; 
the restrictions imposed to avoid offence to neutrals, 
and, especially to the United States, hampered their 
use, and the British counter-measures rapidly became 
effective. By the late summer or early autumn of 
1915, the war on merchantmen had ceased to be a 
matter of serious concern. 

The sense of victory and security engendered in the 
British people, and, unfortunately, in the British 
Admiralty, was, however, entirely illusory. The Ger- 
mans were following a deep-laid plan. While Count 
von Reventlow and others were abusing Herr von 
Bethmann-HoUweg for laying aside the sharpest 
weapon of Germany ; while von Tirpitz was forced into 
retirement, and while the Chancellor, on his side, was 



338 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

protesting that lack of success and not lack of will had 
forced the termination of the U-boat warfare, the 
Germans were building boats by the score of a newer, 
bigger, and stronger type, training crews, laying plans, 
experimenting, preparing the ground for the playing 
of their highest trump — the knave. At the end of 
191 6, after much preliminary blowing of trumpets, a 
so-called "peace-offer" was issued. It amounted 
to no more than an invitation to a conference, at which 
Germany would state her terms. It was preluded 
by an offensive claim to victory. The Allies, wisely or 
unwisely — it depends on the point of view — replied by 
a statement of their aims. Immediately the prepared 
outcry arose in Germany and the countries of her 
Allies. "England" had spurned the hand offered to 
her and had proclaimed her intention to destroy Ger- 
many. On her head, then, rested the guilt of the con- 
tinued bloodshed ; Germany would now use her sharpest 
weapons. Herr von Bethmann-HoUweg, with a cyni- 
cism worthy of his "scrap of paper" outburst and his 
admission of the wrong done to Belgium when the 
German armies set themselves to "hack their way 
through" her territories, declared that he had only 
been waiting for a favourable opportunity to open 
"unrestricted U-boat warfare." The time had now 
come; Germany was ready, both with men and material; 
the food-supply of the whole world was short, and, if 
the United States saw fit to resent German measures, 
their intervention would come too late to affect the issue. 
The prophets of Germany declared that the U-boats 
were in a position to sink a million tons of shipping a 
month, and that Great Britain would be forced to sue 
for peace in three. 

The measures proclaimed were a challenge to the 



CONCLUSION 339 

whole world. Every ship of whatever nationality 
which approached a cordon drawn round practically 
the whole of Europe would be sunk at sight. Hospital 
ships were included among the intended victims, on the 
flimsy pretence that the British employed them for 
the conveyance of troops and stores. The proclama- 
tion was attended by every sort of insult to neutrals, 
such as the insolent permission given to the Dutch to 
send a weekly paddle-steamer to Southwold and to the 
Americans to send one ship a week, painted in a pre- 
scribed and ridiculous way, to Falmouth. Moreover, 
the Chancellor, having protested up to the last that the 
Germans meant to adhere to their agreement with the 
United States, arrived at after the sinking of the Sussex, 
that they would not destroy passenger steamers without 
warning, told the American Ambassador only six hours 
before the "unrestricted warfare" was to be put into 
effect of the intentions of Germany, with the calm 
intimation that the German word held good just so 
long as it suited Germany, and no longer. The result 
was an immediate material success for the Germans, 
and a crushing moral defeat. Ships went down Hke 
leaves in autimm. Hospital ships, Belgian relief ships, 
under German safe conduct, anything and everything. 
Neutrals hesitated to sail. The whole trade of the 
world was thrown out of gear. But the United States 
ranged themselves on the side of the Allies, and, from 
China to Peru, the neutral States showed their detest- 
ation of the crime either by declaring war or by break- 
ing off relations with the German Government. Only 
the little sea-bordered States of Northern Europe, too 
near to Germany and too weak to resent her iniquity, 
bowed the head and suffered. The immediate addition 
to the forces of the Alliance in the field was not great. 



340 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

So far, the German calculation was correct. But the 
addition to the unseen forces which work silently- 
through sea power was enormous. Every embarrass- 
ment felt by Great Britain in her blockade policy was 
swept away. She became to the whole world what she 
had never been before in all her wars, the champion of 
its rights instead of the tyrant of the seas. For it 
has always been the weakness of Britain that, while 
she was fighting for liberty against land-tyranny, she 
has always been compelled by her war-measures to 
appear as the antagonist of neutral right, or, at any rate, 
of neutral interest. 

After a first gasp of surprise the British people 
steadied themselves to meet the new situation. Never 
did they prove more gloriously their right to be con- 
sidered the first maritime nation in the world. Not a 
merchant seaman flinched from his duty. Not a British 
ship the less sailed from or to her ports. Neutrals might 
hesitate, and justifiably. The mercantile marine of 
Britain carried on. The Admiralty, newly formed 
just before the unrestricted warfare began, with Sir 
Edward Carson as First Lord and Sir John Jellicoe, 
recalled for the purpose from the command of the 
Grand Fleet, as First Sea Lord, were placed in the 
most embarrassing position. Their predecessors had 
failed to foresee the German plan. The advice of the 
Navy had not been sought in forming the general war- 
plans of the Allies, and the nation was committed to 
distant enterprises, demanding the protection of long 
lines of communications which could not be secured 
without complete command of the sea. The sinking 
of hospital ships and raids from Zeebrugge on the coast 
of Kent caused a continual demand for protection which 
threatened to denude the Grand Fleet of its necessary 



CONCLUSION 341 

complement of destroyers and light craft, and, perhaps, 
to render it impotent. A clatter of interested criticism 
arose; but the nation, as a whole, would have none of it. 
It quickly recognised that no magical device was to be 
expected which would finish the submarine at a blow, 
and it made up its mind that "it's dogged that does it. " 
By the end of May, four months after the unrestricted 
U-boat warfare had begun, and a month after the date 
at which, according to the German calculation, we were 
to have been on our knees, the Prime Minister was able 
to inform the House of Commons that our resources 
were sufficient to pull us through. By September it 
was confidently announced that the U-boat campaign 
was defeated. 



War in itself is an exhibition by man of the elemental 
instincts which belong to the animal in him. The profes- 
sion of arms is noble only because man, by his reason, 
realises the dangers to which war exposes him, and faces 
them with a steadfast mind at the call of faith or justice 
or freedom. It is an offering of self for a cause. The 
cause may be a bad one, but that is not for the sailor or 
soldier to judge. The motives on which he acts are 
loyalty, faithfulness, duty. It is for others to bear the 
responsibility of the rights and wrongs of the quarrel. 
Thence comes the paradox that war, in itself bestial, 
calls forth the highest qualities of which man is capable. 
But the glory is in dying, not in killing. The warrior 
who kills the unresisting is on a level with the cutthroat. 
Progressive consciousness of this has led to the gradual 
evolution of a whole code of restraints, wholly illogical 
it may be, but firmly rooted in the better nature of man, 
by which the naked horrors of war have been mitigated. 



342 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

Those who cease to resist are spared; the aged and the 
young are unmolested; women are inviolate. Even 
private property is respected. Nay, more; restraint is 
placed even upon the weapons which may be used 
against the armed forces of the enemy. At least, all 
these things were regarded as established until the 
German tribes arose to make war on a world devoted 
to peace at the bidding of a knot of half -crazy soldiers 
and statesmen surrounding a potentate drunk with 
flattery. Then the astonished world learned that 
logic and science could bring men back to the worst 
and most brutal savagery of their primeval instincts, 
unchecked, unsoftened, and unsweetened either by 
the boasted progress of humanity or the revelation of 
Divine Love which the Germans nominally accept as 
their religious creed. 

Necessity, we know, has been described as "the 
tyrant's plea." The tyrants of Potsdam have used it 
to the full. Could they have pleaded truthfully, as 
they have pleaded mendaciously, "We are fighting for 
the Hf e of our country against a world banded against us 
in a monstrous act of aggression," some justification of 
their violent infractions of international right might 
have been admitted. But the German faith is that 
whoever resists the ambitions of Germany, no matter to 
what degree these conflict with the rights and interests 
of her neighbours, is thereby guilty of an "attack" 
upon her. Preventive war is then a "necessity." 
The violation of her neighbour's territory is also a 
"necessity," in order that the preventive war may 
be carried to a successful conclusion. The ruthless 
shooting of those who resist and the laying waste of 
their cities is also a "necessity." And all is tricked 
out in the garb of mercy. We are assured that "fright- 



CONCLUSION 343 

fulness" is reluctantly adopted as a means of shortening 
the war and bringing the blessings of German Kultur to 
the nations of the earth. It is egotism exalted to the 
seventh heaven. It is also the deliberate denial of right 
to all nations but the German. Not even the aUies of 
Germany are excepted, for the reward offered to them 
for their comradeship in arms is, in the case of victory, 
to live under the German yoke, and, in the case of 
defeat, to pay the price thereof: "Oesterreich mussen 
Uutr 

Now this is the very antithesis of all that sea power 
stands for. These chapters have been written in vain if 
it has not been made clear that, from Xerxes to Napo- 
leon, the breed of men who have used the sea have 
stubbornly upheld the right of men and nations to live 
their lives as they chose, to worship God according to 
their consciences, to enjoy intellectual freedom under 
the form of government best suited to. themselves. 
No gifts which the best and wisest despot could bring, of 
material prosperity, of ordered and sheltered existence, 
could compensate for the loss of freedom of soul, the 
unfettered choice of paths which alone forms character. 
God Himself damned Germanism when He gave free 
will to man. 

Secure in their island, when once the secret of sea 
power had been learned, the British people have fought 
out the matter of freedom among themselves. They 
have curbed the power of kings and priests and nobles. 
They have learned that each in turn may become a 
barrier against the tyranny of the other; that all, in 
their ordered degree, are a bulwark against the hasty 
passions of the mob, as the groynes on the coast against 
the violence of the storm. They learned, slowly per- 
haps, the lesson of tolerance, the worth of compromise, 



344 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the worthlessness of logic divorced from actuality. 
To live and let live became their ideal. And with the 
widening of the world, the opening of the sea, they 
spread that ideal over the globe. Did tyranny, political, 
ecclesiastical, or economic, at any time threaten to 
prevail in Britain, there were lands beyond the seas 
to which those Britons who would not suffer it could 
pass. There they widened the bounds of their liberty, 
and thence the tide flowed back again, bringing new 
freshness to the Motherland. Others went but for a 
time, as sailors, as merchants, as administrators. But 
all alike have contributed to keep the national life sane. 
" Insular" we may be. No man is more prone to poke 
fun at the foreigner than is the Briton, or to pity him 
for the misfortune of his birth. But the Briton does not 
display the irritation of the German when, for instance, 
an Englishman takes off his coat to play lawn-tennis. He 
has a salt of humour which forbids him to believe that 
all races of mankind would be the better if they could 
be melted down and cast into a mould of his pattern. 

Contrast the history of Germany. Divided, dis- 
tracted, desolated by war, foreign and civil, the German 
tribes have slowly crystallised round the military 
kingdom of Prussia. The threat from without has 
always checked political development within. Security 
had demanded unquestioning submission to the will 
of the ruler and the classes around him. That all 
Germans should be cast in one mould and obedient to a 
single mind has appeared the first condition of existence. 
Generations of weakness and enslavement to petty 
potentates or prelates paved the way for the 
domination of Prussia over the lesser States. More- 
over, having no national life of her own, Germany 
for centuries supplied the mercenaries of Europe, from 



CONCLUSION 345 

the Lanz-knechts of the Middle Ages to the Hessians 
and Hanoverians who left so evil a reputation in Amer- 
ica and Ireland. Recollection of this, perhaps, accounts 
for the abhorrence in which the term "mercenary" is 
regarded in Germany to-day. Whether derived from 
them or not, the brutality of German militarism is 
worthy of their traditions. From all this there was no 
escape for the German oversea. If he left his native 
shore it was in a foreign ship, to dwell among foreigners, 
to listen to a foreign tongue, to live under foreign laws 
and amid foreign customs and habits of thought. He 
could contribute nothing to the evolution of ideas which 
were essentially German, as could the Briton who dwelt 
in the United States, Canada, or Australia, to ideas 
which are essentially British. He could not get out of 
the reach of the long arm of the tyranny under which 
he lived at home save by forfeiting much of that which 
made him German. Se soumettre ou se demettre was his 
painful choice. Intoxication with victory completed 
the work of turning the German people into an instru- 
ment ready to the hand of the megalomaniacs who 
dreamed of world-dominion. Victory, be it said, not 
only on the field of battle, but in science, in commerce, 
and in organisation. "We Germans are the salt of 
the earth" was a phrase quite natural on the lips of the 
monarch of this self-centred people. 

Only such a people could be brought to submit to 
the long years of grinding discipline and sacrifice which 
had to be lived while their leaders were maturing their 
plans of conquest. The Briton, with no bitter memo- 
ries of an invaded and ravaged land, with his belief, 
tested by centuries of immunity, in the security of his 
island home with the seas and all that lies beyond open 
to him, would never for an instant have endured what 



346 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

the German has endured for forty-five years in the belief 
that what was prepared for aggression was necessary 
for defence. The application is not particular, but 
general. It shows why a Sea Power is incapable of 
planning and attempting the subjugation of other 
nations; why freedom does indeed flourish behind the 
trident and not the sword. 

This analysis brings us to the underlying factors of 
the submarine war. It lays bare the deeply-hidden 
springs of the conflict between Britain and Germany, 
between the "elephant and the whale," to quote Bis- 
marck. The submarine war is the attempt on the part 
of the Prussians to bring military tyranny to bear upon 
the seas and to carry it to the uttermost parts of the 
earth where sea power has planted freedom. Napo- 
leon failed at the water's edge. Prussia is making a 
desperate attempt to succeed in the dark places under 
the waters. This makes the defeat of the Prussian 
plan a question not only between Great Britain and her 
present foe, but between freedom and tyranny in all 
parts of the world. For a German success means 
that the whole world is to bow the head to the German 
plea of "necessity," which means submission to the 
arbitrary will of Germany on pain of the complete 
destruction of all intercourse between nations, of all 
freedom to conduct the ordinary affairs of men, but by 
the Prussian leave. 

The Germans claim that they are fighting for the 
Freedom of the Seas. It is an effective phrase. It has 
already been shown that Great Britain, as the fruit 
of her maritime triumphs down to 1815, and by the 
work of her Navy in the years of peace that followed, 
secured that freedom for all the nations of the world. 
The Germans, however, attach a different meaning to 



CONCLUSION 347 

the phrase. They design to overthrow the barrier 
which sea power has placed between tyranny and 
freedom. When Mendoza complained to EHzabeth 
of the insolence of Drake in daring to sail in the Spanish 
Main, that high-spirited Princess replied, "Tell your 
royal Master that a title to the ocean cannot belong 
to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither 
nature nor pubHc use and custom permitteth any 
possession thereof." Philip claimed the monopoly of 
the Spanish Main as a way by which the long arm of his 
tyranny could reach his subjects in Spanish America. 
The German claim is really identical. They do not 
claim possession of the ocean, it is true, though their 
contention that the Baltic should be regarded as mare 
clausum shows that they do not, in their hearts, accept 
Elizabeth's repudiation of private possession. But 
they claim that, in time of war, the sea should be 
altogether ruled out of the theatre of operations. They 
claim not only that merchantmen, belligerent and neu- 
tral alike, should be allowed to come and go freely, 
but that the same immunity should be permitted to 
transports. Hostilities are not to begin until the 
enemy's coast is reached. We and every nation in the 
world are to be compelled to lay aside our shield of naval 
defence. The arm of miHtary autocracy is to be 
extended so that it can reach to the further side of the 
Atlantic, into the Pacific, to the Antipodes, or anywhere 
it will. Against this outrageous demand. Great Britain 
stands, the one firm rock. The German reply, to the 
whole world, is, "Very well. So long as 'England' 
resists our demand, we will sink your ships, murder 
your people, destroy your property." It is "neces- 
sary" to Germany to have freedom of the seas in her 
sense of the word. It is "necessary," in order to 



348 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

obtain it, to break * ' England's ' ' sea power. To do so, it 
is "necessary" to use the submarine weapon, and, 
since "England's" supremacy above the surface 
prevents the Germans bringing ships into port, it is 
"necessary " to sink them. Moreover, as "England's " 
patrol craft swarm on the seas and her merchantmen are 
armed, it is "necessary" for the U-boats to remain be- 
low the surface and to use the torpedo without warning 
or an attempt to secure the safety of those on board 
the ships attacked. Thus the plea of necessity is turned 
into a doctrine of devils. 

It is surely clear that we have reached the ultimate 
issue between sea power as the instrument of freedom 
and land power as that of military tyranny. Let us see 
what will happen if, in the upshot, the submarine is not 
rendered innocuous by force of arms. It is idle, in that 
case, to suppose that any international agreement will 
avail to stop its use as the Germans have used it. Ex 
hypothesi, the naval force of the whole world would be 
impotent. Mankind would be thrown back on a choice 
of these alternatives : either the German doctrine of the 
Freedom of the Seas must be accepted, in which case 
every country in the world will lie at the mercy of 
military power unless it lives armed to the teeth, or 
else the intercourse between nations separated by the 
sea must remain for ever subject to sudden and violent 
interruption by any Power which has an ambition to 
serve and which deems the time ripe for its fulfilment, 
provided it has sufficient military force to resist invasion 
and fortified ports from which its submarines can issue. 
We shall be thrown back upon the naked rule of force, 
and the counter check which sea power has always 
placed upon the misuse of land power and vice versa will 
be a thing of the past. 



CONCLUSION 349 

To those who hold Free Trade as an article of faith 
the prospect created by the methods of the German sub- 
marine attack upon merchantmen and the consequences 
which would flow from its success must be regarded as 
particularly serious. No country will dare, in future, 
to rely on supplies of necessaries from abroad if it values 
its national life. Home production even of the things 
which the country is least fitted to produce must be 
maintained, or the national security will be imperilled. 
International trade will receive a severe check, and, with 
it, the peaceful intercourse between nations. The world 
will be thrown back on the old conception of trade as a 
form of hostilities, in which the nation which attempts 
to thrust its goods into the markets of its neighbours 
is striking a blow at their national life. That view will 
be the better justified in the light of our past experiences 
of Germany's trade methods and aims. 

To the British Empire the state of things here fore- 
cast would be particularly disastrous. We look to the 
future development of the dominions and dependencies 
as our great source for the supply of foodstuffs and raw 
materials. But that can only be if the way of the sea 
can be kept reasonably safe in war as well as in peace. 
Take sugar, for instance. We are never likely to repeat 
the costly mistake by which we became dependent on 
foreign bounty-fed sugar, especially from Germany. 
But sugar is an essential food, and the alternatives 
before us are to set up and foster the cultivation of 
beet in this country, or to develop the supply of cane- 
sugar within the Empire, which contains many areas 
particularly fitted for its production. If the submarine 
is allowed to continue a standing menace to the world, 
it is on the first and not the second alternative that we 
must rely. The same remarks apply to other commodi- 



350 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

ties, though, perhaps, not so forcibly. The submarine 
menace, in fact, cuts at the very basis on which the 
Ocean Empire is founded. While all the world is 
interested, and profoundly interested, in its suppression 
to us it is a matter of life or death. 

It is essential, then, that we should have a clear 
understanding of a development which touches the 
future of the British Commonwealth so nearly. The 
"U-boat warfare" of the Germans, in its eventual 
development, was a surprise sprung upon the world 
because it was the use of a weapon, new and not fully 
understood, in a way which set at defiance all the usages 
of the civilised world. It is quite justifiably described 
as piracy. Piracy in its strict sense is, of course, private 
war levied on the world for the sake of gain. But there 
have been States to which piracy was a policy, and the 
action of Germany does not differ from theirs except 
that direct robbery was not resorted to except in small 
and insignificant instances. But that Germany has 
levied war upon the whole world for her own ultimate 
gain, and that she is, in the words of the old jurists, 
hostis humani generis, is a matter which admits of 
no dispute. It is a rather singular instance of uncon- 
scious prophecy that, in 1849, when a German fleet, 
flying the colours of the empire which was not then in 
existence, had a skirmish with the Danes off Heligoland, 
Palmerston gave great offence to the Germans by declar- 
ing that any vessel committing acts of belligerency 
under the black-red-and-gold flag would render them- 
selves liable to be treated as pirates. The black-red- 
and-white which has succeeded the black-red-and-gold 
has made good its claim to the inheritance of the "Jolly 
Roger." 

It must, however, be borne in mind that the sub- 



CONCLUSION 351 

marine is an engine of destruction merely. It may 
hamper and harass sea power. It might conceivably 
banish it from the earth by. closing the seas altogether 
to the use of mankind. It can never confer sea power 
on any nation. The theory was advanced in the open- 
ing chapter of the book that the natural plane of man's 
existence is sea level. Above and below it he is involved 
in a ceaseless struggle with the law of gravity. Even in 
surface ships cranes are needed to extract cargo from 
holds below the water-line. This fact seems to secure 
the permanence of the surface ship as the ultimate 
factor in sea power, using the term in its broadest 
sense. Despite the boasted voyages of the Deutschland, 
submarine cargo-ships are never likely, for very many 
reasons, to replace surface vessels for trade purposes. 
If that be so, it follows that the Power which is inferior 
in force on the surface and relies on submarine attack, 
while it may forbid to its opponent the use of the 
sea, can never acquire it for itself. The "fundamental 
basis of sea power, which has existed since Syracuse," 
is not therefore "shaken by this new development of 
submarine cruisers," as was somewhat absurdly asserted 
when the "unrestricted U-boat warfare" was at its 
height. No mere mechanical invention can effect 
that. The fundamental basis of sea power will still 
remain, and must always remain, the force which pro- 
tects the use of the sea, and the ships and men which use 
it. The submarine menace does not differ in essence 
from the varying dangers which have threatened sea- 
borne commerce in the past. The instrument has the 
added power of becoming invisible at will, and the 
German method of its use involves a disregard of human 
life and human right which belongs to the centuries 
before the reign of law was extended to the sea; that is, 



352 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

before peaceful intercourse between nations was estab- 
lished. The sea sense of a maritime nation may be 
trusted to prevail eventually over the particular advan- 
tage secured by invisibility. Merchantmen, as of old, 
will be compelled to go armed, and their crews will have 
to be included in the category of combatants. This 
will involve a revision of the rules which forbid the use 
of neutral ports to armed vessels, except for limited 
periods which are too short for the loading and unloading 
of cargo. It will make the preservation of neutrality 
far harder than it has hitherto been, and will pro- 
bably extend the area of war, as, indeed, it has done in 
the present instance. But in the end the old qualities 
and aptitudes will prevail to give command of the sea 
to the nation fitted by character and natural advantages 
to possess it. 

On the other hand, the disappearance of the reign 
of law from the sea in war-time will greatly modify inter- 
national relationships, not only in war but in peace, 
unless law can be re-established on some sure basis. 
It has been pointed out that nations must become more 
self-contained and self-supporting. It may be added 
that the great maritime Powers, and Britain first and 
foremost, will be compelled to rely more exclusively on 
their own ships, which they can protect and arm, and 
that in all probability it will be necessary to build a 
greater number of smaller ships, with a consequent 
increase in the cost of ocean travel and of freight. The 
eggs will have to be distributed in as many baskets as 
possible. This may involve a return to something 
like the Navigation Laws, and will be bad for the 
maritime prospects of such countries as Holland, Den- 
mark, Norway, and Greece. But here a consideration 
of the first importance intrudes itself. After their first 



CONCLUSION 353 

failure the Germans were quick to recognise that a sub- 
marine campaign against commerce offered no chance 
of success unless all merchantmen, neutral as well as 
belligerent, were subjected to attack. The reason is 
partly economic, and obvious, and partly military. To 
lie concealed and shoot at sight without exposing them- 
selves to make inquiry was the only method by which 
the U-boats could obtain comparative immunity. If in 
future wars neutral nations choose to submit to such an 
assault on their rights ; if they will not even resent it to 
the extent of closing their harbours and territorial 
waters to the pirate boats, but extend to them the privi- 
leges of warships ; if they tamely submit to a haughty 
summons to stay at home or take the consequences, 
then this menace to the world's safety will never be 
removed. It will be bound to spread, for, once openly 
or tacitly admitted to be within the limits of lawful 
warfare, no nation will be able to abstain from its use 
any more than we and the French and the Russians 
could abstain from the use of poison gas, abhorrent as 
it was to our consciences. 

No conventions in themselves will be binding. 
Deeds alone will avail to free the world from this assault 
on its rights. Only if every nation which uses the sea 
determines and declares that submarines used for the 
indiscriminate destruction of sea-borne trade shall be 
treated as outlaws, refused all rights, and destroyed at 
sight whenever opportunity offers; only if every State 
which possesses warships will assist in hunting them 
out will the plague be abated. There need be no 
Declaration of War. Indeed, there should be none. 
They should be treated with exactly the consideration 
extended to sharks. 



23 



354 SEA POWER AND FREEDOM 

In the Heavenly Jerusalem, as seen by St. John in 
the Apocalypse, "there was no more sea." But there 
right and justice, love and the liberty of the sons of God 
prevailed. To man on earth, so far as the sea has been, 
and is, a divider, it has been a barrier which he can 
place between himself and oppression and wrong. To 
overleap that barrier has ever been the aim of tyranny. 
The tyrant loathes the thought that any man should 
be out of reach of his arm. Benevolent or harsh, he 
demands the tribute of the souls, no less than the bodies, 
of men. The tyrant may be a man or a system — even a 
democratic system. In either case, blue water is his 
bane. To the sons of freedom, on the other hand, the 
sea is a pathway which unites. Are freedom and 
tyranny empty words? Recent events have shown us 
that they are not, though they are terms easily misused. 
Let us hold fast our heritage. Though there is much 
yet to gain, something has been lost through the 
circumstances which have compelled us to abandon our 
historical policy and turn ourselves into a Land Power 
on a European scale. So long as we are mindful that 
our past, our present, and our future lie on the water, 
we shall refuse the temptation which might possibly 
breed the will to enter into an era of conquests. 

We had better avoid illusions. There is no security 
that this war will end war. Human passions remain 
what they ever were, and, when the sick-headache has 
passed, it is only too probable that Europe will return 
to its wallowing in the mire of jealousies and ambitions. 
The hope of the world's peace rests on the free nations 
sprung from the loins of Britain, the offspring of sea 
power. On these united, the freedom-loving races of 
Europe can rest. To them can be entrusted the main- 
tenance of a true freedom of the seas. The small 



CONCLUSION 355 

nations, deemed by the Germans unfit for separate 
existence, will look to them with confidence to guarantee 
them equal rights with the greater Powers. There 
are, perhaps, internal struggles ahead of us, not less 
severe than the great struggle with the Powers of Dark- 
ness which we have been waging since 191 4. Man will 
still seek to build the New Jerusalem on earth by social 
and political changes, oblivious of the truth that the 
Kingdom of God is within him. And greed and selfish- 
ness will resist his efforts. If we are to come through 
in safety, we shall need to be taken out of ourselves 
by remembrance of the duty laid upon us to all nations 
of mankind in return for the infinite blessings which 
sea power has brought us. 

Where Britain's flag flies wide unfurled, 

All tyrant wrong repelling, 
God make the world a better world 

For man's brief earthly dwelling! 



INDEX 



Abbeville, Henry V. turned inland 

at, 70 
Abdul Hamid, 292 
Aboukir, expedition under Aber- 
crombie at, 201 
Bay, action off, 199, 200 
Aboukir, the, 334 
Acre, 28 

defence of, 217 
lost to Christian cause, 98 
Napoleon at-, 200 
Sidney Smith's resistance at, 
217 
Actium, 40, 104; Empire of 
Cassars founded at, 20, 
40 
Aden, annexation, 222; impor- 
tance of, 221, 222 
Admiralty, 73, 286, 328, 309- 

335 
appointment of War Staff at, 

274 
Board of, 316 

Intelligence Department of, 
299 
Adriatic, Austrian fleet blockaded 
in, 331 
coast of, 16, 90; importance of, 

to Italy, 87, 88 
Italians at head of (19 14), 293 
operations in, 331 
^gean Islands, Greek colonisa- 
tion in, 30; ships of, 34 
iEgean Sea, Persians cross the, 32; 

292 
Aerial reconnaissance, 310 
Africa, 42, 109, 113 

British possessions in, after 

Peace of 1815, 220 
collision of races in, 31 
German subsidised line to, 257 
Greek settlement in, 30 



Phoenician settlement in, 31, 86, 

90, 105, 112 
Agadir, 275 
Agincourt, 15, 32, 71 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 175 
Albania, future of, 279 
Albanian Mountains, Serbian 

Army in, 289 
Alberoni, Cardinal, 164, 165 
Albert, King of the Belgians, 282 
Albion, first mention of, 43 
Albuera, 15 
Albuquerque, 112, 167 
Alcantara, the, 308 
Alcibiades, 37 
Alexander I., vowed friendship to 

Napoleon, 214; rupture 

with Napoleon, 217 
Alexander III., the, sunk, 268 
Alexander VI., Bull of 8, 115, 

116, 118 
Alexander the Great, 24, 26, 28, 

37,39 
armies of, 26 
conqueror of Egypt, 169 
Alexandria, bombardment of , 233; 

Nelson at, 198 
Alexandrine Empire, 38 
Alfred the Great, blockaded Dan- 
ish fleet, 53; grasped 
meaning and function of 
sea power, 53; nation's 
debt to, 54; treaty of 
Wedmore, 53 
Algeciras, 324 

Algiers, bombardment of, 147; 
British attack on, 226; 
reduced, 105 
Ali Pasha, capture of, 103 
Allies, aims of, 338 
armies of, 288 

dependent on support of 
navies of, 292 
joined by Great Britain, 291 



357 



358 



INDEX 



Allies, reply to German "peace 

offer," 338 

unpreparedness for war, i 
Alma, 15 

Almeida, iii, 112, 115, 166 
Alps, Italians at Swiss (1914), 

293 

Amboyna, fell to Dutch, 144; 
English factors murdered 
at, 145 
America, Britain's holdings in, 
151, 160, 162 

Cabot reaches, 119 

contrast between Latin and 
Anglo-Saxon, 57 

discovery of, 5 

effect of discovery of, 80, 86 

English trade rights, 170 

first settlement in, 1 19-122 

France's foothold in, 153, 166 

German impertinence to, 239 

hegemony of, 161 

South, 113 

Spanish claim to, 109, no, 116 

struggle for trade in, 168 
American Ambassador flouted by 
Germany, 339 

fleet, strength of, in Cuban 
War, 238 

Government made commercial 
grievances a casus belli, 
218 

mercantile marine destroyed by 
Civil War, 248 

Navy, 253 

ships, successes of, 219 
American War of Independence, 
adhesion of France to 
Revolutionaries, 185; 
American Colonies and 
two West Indian Islands 
lost, 186; begun by re- 
sistance to Stamp Act, 
184; British criticised by 
Mahan, 188; British con- 
duct of, 189; British sur- 
renders in America, 186; 
cause of British defeat, 
188; conditions unfa- 
vourable to Great Brit- 
ain, 185; Great Britain 
embarrassed by Dutch 
declaration of war, and 
by "armed neutrality," 
186; operations in West 



Indies, main naval inter- 
est in, 187; sea power of 
Britain unshaken, 186; 
surrender at Yorktown, 
187 

Amiens, Peace of, 192 

Amphion, the, 286; 

Amundsen, 230 

Ancient world. Empires of, 19, 20 

Anne, Queen, 158, 162 

Anson, 172, 174 

Antony, 40, 169 

Antwerp, 3, 186 

Arabi Pasha, campaign against, 

233 
Arabs, 93, in, 112 
Aragon, throne of , 108, 114 
Arbuthnot, Admiral Sir Robert, 

317-319 

Arethusa, the, 315 

Ariadne, the, 295 

Ark Royal, the, 126 

Armada, the, 117; effect of defeat 
of, 134; English victory 
over, 128-13 1 ; news of, 
reached England, 125 

Armenia, il 

Armour-plating, changes wrought 
by introduction of, 250- 

253 
Artillery, first used at sea by 

Spaniards, 75 
Asia, armies, of, 31, 231; struggle 

between, and ' Europe, 

26,27 
Asia Minor, 28; Greek colonisation 

in, 30; under Persian 

monarchs, 31 
Assyria, 19, 23 

Athens, sack of, 32; vital impor- 
tance of sea power to, 

36 
Atlantic routes, our control of, 

262 
Fleet, 271-274 
Aube, Admiral, 251 
Augsburg, League of, 157 
Austerlitz, 208, 211, 214 
Australia, 29; Britain's claim to, 

established, 220 
Australia, the, 301, 304, 317 
Austria, 197, 282; Napoleon makes 

war on, 234 
Austria-Hungary, 165; army of, 

291 ; navy of, 290 



INDEX 



359 



Austrian fleet, 300, 331 

Succession, War of, 171-174 
Automobile torpedo, changes 
wrought by introduction 
of, 250-253 
Avlona, 280, 331 
Azores, 113, 114, 135, 136 



B 



Babylonia, as a Sea Power, 4; 

transports to, 11 
Bacon, on command of sea 

(quoted), 17 
Badajoz, 15 
Balaklava, 15, 135 
Balance of power, 161 
Baldwin of Flanders, Emperor of 

East, 97; fell in battle, 

97 

Baldwin of Jerusalem, 93 

Balearic Islands, 154 

Balfour, Mr., letters to Mayors, 
316 

Balkan States, war with Turkey, 
276 

Balkans, 19 

Ballin, Herr, 155, 258 

Baltic, control of, 290, 317; curi- 
ous situation in, 330; 
German command of, 
271 ; Germany's difficulty 
of entrance, 64; naval 
stores from, 186, 196; 
operations in the, 310, 
330; Russian battleships 
in, 265, 266, 331 

Baltic ports ice-sealed, 3 

Barbados, taken by Penn, 147; 
secure to Britain, 151 

Barbarians, assaults of, on Britain, 

56 

Barbarossa, Hairredin, 102 

Barbary States, 139, 195, 197, 225 

Barca, Carthaginian house of, 
38 

Barham, Lord, 207, 209 

Baronage destroyed by Wars of 
the Roses, 80 

Bart, Jean, 157 

Bastia, seized, 197 

Basuto, future of, 246 

Battle of Jutland Bank {see Jut- 
land) 

Battle of Navarino {see Navarino) 



"Battle of the Bight," 310 
Battle of the Falkland Islands, 

304 

Battleships sunk by German sub- 
marines, 334 

Bavaria, Elector of, against Maria 
Theresa, 172 

Bavarian levies of Napoleon, 
214 

Bavarians, defection of, at Lobau, 
217 

Bay of Biscay, 44, 56, 70, 78 

Baylen, French corps surrendered 
at, 213 

Beachy Head, Battle of, 37, 156 

Beagle, the, 230 

Beatty, Sir David, at Dogger 
Bank, 314; Battle of 
Jutland, 315, 316, 317, 
319, 322; "Cat" squad- 
ron, 318; victory of, 323; 
offered German fleet 
battle, 195 

Bedford, Duke of, victorious at 
Harfleur, 71 

Belgium, army refitted, 16; chief 
river, 3; great port of, 3; 
invaded, 16; independ- 
ence of, 234, 282; King 
of, 282; neutrality of, 
234, 281, 282; pledge to, 
of England, 282; resolve 
of, 282; situation of, 3 

Beresford, Lord(Charles), brought 
navy and mercantile 
marine into closer re- 
lation, 274 

Berlin, Decree of, 214; Napoleon's 
Decree of, 212 

Berlin, the, 275 

Bermuda, secure to Britain, 151 

Berytus, Phoenicians founded, 23 

Bethmann-HoUweg, Herr von, 
281, 337 

Bettesworth sent to England by 
Nelson, 207 

Bickerton at Toulon, 326 

Bight of Heligoland, the 320, 

327. 333 
Bigod, Earl, 66 
Bismarck, 257, 278, 281, 346 
Black Death, 5; effect on econo- 
mic position of England, 
80; effect on sea power, 
5 



36o 



INDEX 



Black Prince, the, 317, 319 

Black Sea, 19; Germany's tempo- 
rary command of, 291 ; 
Russian volunteer fleet, 
270; Russia's supremacy 
ii^. 330; temporary com- 
mand of, by Turkey, 29 1 

Blake, Admiral, 133, 146, 147 

Blenheim, 15 

Blockades, 179, 186, 207, 236, 
296, 336 

Bliicher, 315 

Boemond, 92, 93 

Boer War, the 239, 241, 242 

Bombay, iii, 151, 166 

Bonaventure, the, 126 

Bordeaux, 153 

Borden, Sir Robert, 241, 246 

Border States of Europe, Eng- 
land's policy towards, 228 

Borneo, Dyaks of, under British 
rule, 243 

Boscawen, 179 

Boulogne, 204 

Bourbons, the, 106, 157, 169, 191 

Boyne, James II. defeated at battle 
of, William's victory at, 

Braganza, Catherme of , 151 

Brazil, no, 113, 144, 166, 213 

Breda, Peace of, 150 

Bremen, 287 

Breslau, the, 299, 300 

Brest, 81, 83, 153, 179, 189, 190, 
193, 195. 203, 322, 325 

Bridport, Lord, 195 

Brighthelmstone(Brighton)bumed 
by French, 82 

Brindisi sacked, 93 

Bristol, Cabot sailed from, 119; 
Company of Merchant 
Adventurers formed, 1 19 

Bristol, the, 304, 306 

Britain {also see Great Britain, 
England, etc.), advan- 
tages gained by, after 
Utrecht, 160, 161; allied 
with France, 148, 150, 
163; defended by Roman 
legionaries, 51; invaded 
by Danes, 52, 53, 55-57; 
invaded by French, 68, 
69; invaded by Normans, 
65; struggles with France, 
156, 176, 184 



British Channel Guard, 174 
British cruisers, 309 
British explorers, 230 
British fleet, base for, 311 
British foreign policy, in relation 
to India, 242; under 
George I., 163, 165 
British mercantile marine, 223 
nation, sea power, evolution of, 

17 

Navy, 18; mobilisation of, 284, 

285 
sea communications, 220-223 
submarines, evolution of, 333; 
feats of, 333 
Brittany, harpooning introduced, 

56 
Bronze Age, 12, 25 
Brooke, Sir James, Rajah, 226, 
Brueys, French commander at 

the Nile, 323 
Brunsbiittel, 310 
Buckingham, Duke of, 143 
Biilgaria, crossing of the Danube, 
330; effect of possible 
elimination of, from war, 
331 ; induced into war to 
avert Germany's danger, 
297; influenced by Tur- 
key, 291, 293; resource- 
lessness of, 295 
Bulgarians in Crusades, 97 
Bull of Alexander VI., 8, 115, 116, 

118, 124 
BuUer, Sir Redvers, 289 
Bundesrat incident, 239, 259 
Byblus, Phoenicians founded, 23; 
submitted to Alexander, 
27 
Byng, afterwards Lord Tornng- 
ton, destroyed Spanish 
fleet, 165 
Byng, John, fatal engagement, 176, 
177; recalled, 177; tried, 
177; shot, 177 
Byron, Lord, in Greek ranks, 

231 

Byzantine Empire, 86, 88, 90, 91, 

93.97 



Cabot, John, 117, 119 
Cabral, no 
Cacafuegos, the, 123 



INDEX 



361 



Cadiz, 208, 210 

Cadmus, 12 ,-, , o 

Caesar, Julius, 43; in Gaul, 48; 
first recorded British bat- 
tle, 48; sees England, 

49 , 
Calais, loss of , 119 
Cambrai, League of, 99 
Cambyses 169; army of, perished, 

27; invaded Egypt, 27 
Camperdown, battle of, 194 
Camperdown, the, 251 
Campo Formio, Treaty of, 199 
Canale, Antonio, confronted by 
Ottomans, 100; banished, 
100; sack of Negropont^ 
100 
Campus, the, 301-305 
Cap Trafalgar, the, 307 
Cape Breton Island, 166 
Cape Horn, no 
Cape of Good Hope, 137 

220 
Cape St. Vincent, 45 
Cape Sunium, 32 
Carmania, the, 307 
Carnarvon, the, 304, 305 
Carson, Sir E., 340 
Carthage, 20, 25, 27; as 

Power, 37, 39; base ot 
Phoenician sea power; 31 ; 
ruin of, 40 
Carthaginians, 14; alliance with 
Alexander, 39; as colo- 
nists, 38 
defeat of, by the Romans, 41 
expeditions into Atlantic, 42 
Cassiterides, 25, 43 
Catholic League, 135 
Cattaro, 331 
Caxton, 108 
Central Empires, i 
Central League, 293; advantage 
to Germany and Austria 
of Italy's adhesion to, 
279; sea power of, in 
Mediterranean, 279 
Central Powers, strength of, 290, 

291, 294 
Cervera, Admiral, 236 
Ceylon, 144, 220 
Chaldean Empire, 20 
Kings, 6 

people not a seafaring race, 21 
Challenger, the, 230 



194. 



Sea 



Channel Fleet, 271-273 

Charles I., 138, 140; demanded 

ship money, 142 
Charles II., Navy under, 14?, 
149; relations with Louis 
XIV., 148 
Charter of Merchants, 1303, 72, 
76 
Cinque Ports, 72 
China, war with Japan, 263 
Choiseul, 185 
Churchill, Mr. Winston, 314, 

316 
Cinque Ports, 65, 68, 69, 72; 
charter of, 72; feudal 
obligations of, 75 
Civil War, the, destroys American 

mercantile marine, 248 
Claudius, conquest of Britain, 50 
Clive, 112, 167 
Cnidus, 37 

Colbert, 153. 1541 policy of, for 
development of France, 

154 

Collingwood, 208, 210 

Colonies, British, in North Amer- 
ica, 166; in the East, 
166; in the Mediterran- 
ean, 166 
contribute to British Navy, 

241. 243 , . . ,, 
French, in North America, 166; 

in the East, 166 
government of, 184 
military aid given by, 241 
North American, 161 
Spanish, 165 . 

Colonisation, an intrinsic part ot 

sea power, 239, 241 
Colonists, early, n, 14 
Greek, 14, 29, 30 
Phoenician, 24, 29 
Venetian, 13 
Columbus, Christopher, 108, 109, 

no, 115, 116 
Command of the sea, i, 8 
Commonwealth, clash with Dutch, 

146 
Comnenus, Alexius, 90 
Company of Merchant Adventur- 
ers, 119 
Conon, 37 
Constantinople, 80, 88, 90, 91. 93. 

96, 97. 98, 99. 108, 109 
Contraband of war, 336 



362 



INDEX 



Convention of Cintra, 213 

Copenhagen, 16, 77, 202 

Corinth, 14; colonies of, 29 

Cornwall, 43, 52, 58, 304, 305 

Cornwallis, 203, 207, 208, 309, 
, 325,326 

Coron lost to Venice, loi 

Corsica, 11, 30, 44, 197, 198 

Cortes conquered Mexico, 115 

Corunna, 16, 127, 134, 136, 214 

Cradock Rear-Admiral Sir Chris- 
topher, 301-303 

Cr6cy, 15, 69 

Cressy, the, 334 

Crime on high seas, 8 

Cromwell, Oliver, clash with 
Dutch under 145; sol- 
diers, 131, 133; wars with 
Dutch, 145-147 

Cromwellian wars, Blake in, 146; 
bombardment of Algiers, 
147; heralded long series 
of fights, 147; sinking of 
Spanish fleet, 147; t^.k- 
ing of Jamaica and Bar- 
bados, 147; were na- 
tional, 147 

Cruisers, British, 309; sunk by- 
German submarines, 334 

Crusades, 89, 91 94, 96, 97 

Cuba, 166 

Cuban War, 237, 238 

Cuxhaven, 310, 315 

Cyprus, 7, II, 24, 37, 91, 102, 
221 

Cyrenaica, 30 

Cythera, 24 



D 



d'Ache, Commodore, 178 

Dandolo, Doge of Venice, re- 
lations with Crusaders, 
96 

Danelagh, the, 53-56 

Danish invasion of Britain, 52-57 

Danube, Middle, importance of, 
169, 197; waterway of 
the, 330 

Dardanelles, the 3, 37, 98, 100, 
104, 217; closing of, 336 

Darius, 27, 31 

Deal, Julius Csesar lands at, 
50 

De Burgh, Hubert, 58, 128 



Declaration of Paris, 335 
of Independence, 191 
of the Rights of Man, 191 

Defence, the, 300, 317-319 

Defending navy, value of, 63 

De Grasse, operations of, 187 

De Guichen, operations of, 188, 
190 

Delcasse, M., 272 

Delos, League of, 35 

Demerara, 194, 220 

Derfflinger, the German battle- 
cruiser, 315 

d'Estaing, operations of, 187 

Deutsche Flottenverein (German 
Navy League), 258 

Deutschland class, the, 320 

Deutschland, the, 351 

Diaz, Bartholomew, 26, 108 

Dido, the, in action, 226 

Dogger Bank, battle of the, 314; 
incident, 268, 271 

Dragon, the, 121 

Drake, Sir Francis, expeditions of, 
120-25, 135; ^s a naval 
strategist, 128, 136; pol- 
icy of, 309 

Drake's ships, 122, 123, 126 

Dreadnought class, 259, 261, 273; 
the first, 126 

Dresden, the, German light cruiser, 

299, 304. 307 

Duke of Edinburgh, the, British 
armoured cruiser, 317 

Duncan, Admiral, 193 

Dunkirk, 193 

Dupleix, exploits of, 166, 175, 176 

Dutch, 14; as traders, 143; colon- 
ies, 144; conflict with 
English 148-151; East 
India Company, 144; 
fleet blockaded in Texel, 
193; navy, comparison 
of, with English, 151; 
mastery of the sea, de- 
cline of , 148-152; rise of 
sea power of 142-144; 
wars against Cromwell, 
145. 147 



E 



East India Company, foundation 
of, 137; nucleus of Em- 
pire of India, 242 



INDEX 



363 



East Indies, British position in, 
187, 188 

Easter Island, 221 

Eastern Front, extent of, 293 

Edward VII., diplomacy of, 271, 
280 

Edward III., 67, 68, 69, 70 

Effective blockade, 335 

Effingham, Lord, 136 

Egbert, 51, 52 

Egypt, 20; ancient, fall of, caused 
by sea power, 22, 28; as 
a central base, 288; as 
a Sea Power, 4; adminis- 
tration of, in hands of 
British, 233; attempted 
invasion of, by Napoleon, 
204; invasion of," 27; 
importance of position 
of, 153, 169; occupied by 
the British, 221 

Egyptians, ancient, not a sea- 
faring people, 22 

Elba, 198 

Elbe, mouth of the, 203, 310 

Elector Palatine, the, 138 

Elizabeth, Queen of England, 123- 
133; as protector of Prot- 
estantism, 134; naval 
policy of, 136 

Elizabethan Navy, the, 130, 131, 
132, 141 

Emden, the, 299, 307 

Empire, bond of 15; foundation 
of British, in India, 178; 
foundations of Britain's 
oversea, 151; in relation 
to Mother Country, 95; 
Ocean, 15, 161, 175 

Empires of ancient world, 20 

England, conflict with Spain, 124, 
125; conflict with Hol- 
land, 146-152; invasion 
of, by Spain, 127; peace 
with Spain, 139; mari- 
time greatness of, begin- 
ning -of, 83 {see also under 
Britain and Great Brit- 
ain) 

English nation, effect of tribal in- 
cursions on, 58-60; racial 
elements of, 58 

Entente Cordiale, the, 233, 271, 

275 
Erin, the, 284 



Espagnols-sur-Mer, battle of, 70 
Ethelred the Unready, 54 
Euphrates, the, 11, 20 
Expeditionary Force, 274; passage 

to France, 286 
Explorers, British, 230 



P 



Falkland Islands, 222; battle of, 
304-306 

Farragut, 236 

Federated Malay States, develop- 
ment of, 221 

Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 
108-109, 114 

Finland, Gulf of, 330 

Firth of Forth, 312 

Fisher, Admiral Lord, 253, 271- 
272, 275, 280, 304, 306, 
316 

Fleets, First and Second, composi- 
tion of, 273 

Fleury, Cardinal, 165 

Florida regained by Spain, 188 

Fontainebleau, Treaty of, 181, 
184, 185 

Formidable, the, 334 

France, 3, 9; as a Sea Power, 4; 
alliance with Britain, 
163; alliance with Spain, 
198; allied with Britain 
against the Dutch, 148, 
150; development of, by 
Colbert, 154-155; failure 
of English attempt to 
subdue, 67; invasion of, 
in 141 5, 70; invasion of, 
by Northmen, 55-57; po- 
sition of, in relation to 
Egypt, 153; war with 
Britain, 156, 176, 184, 
230; under Louis XIV., 

152, 155 
Franco-Prussian War, 192 
Franz-Ferdinand, Archduke, mur- 
der of, 282-283 
Frederick the Great, 182, 278 
Free Trade, 227; efifect of sub- 
marine warfare on, 349 
Freedom of the seas, 346 
French, attempted invasion of 
Britain in, 1340, 70; as a 
seafaring people, 6; fleet, 
329; fleet defeated, 195; 



364 



INDEX 



French — Continued 

invasion of Britain in 
1217, 67; Navy, 186; 
Navy under Richelieu, 
140; relations with Spain, 
163, 165; Revolution in 
1830, 191; struggle 
against autocracy, 235; 
superiority at sea shat- 
tered, 156; trade stopped 
by Britain, 196-197; war 
against commerce, 156 

Probisher, voyages of, 120 

G 

Gallipoli, 288, 292, 294 

Ganteaume, Admiral, 204, 207, 
208, 215, 325 

Garibaldi, 234 

Genoa, struggle with Venice for 
mastery of sea, 97 

George I. of England, 163; foreign 
policy of, 163-165 

German — ambitions, antagonism 
with Slav, 279; Empire, 
growth of, 278; fleet, 310, 
311-313; value of, 64, 
65; High Sea Fleet, 283; 
Higher Command, 283; 
Kultur, 278; light cruis- 
ers, actions of, 299- 
308 ; maritime competi- 
tion with Britain, 258, 
259; maritime expan- 
sion, 257; military navy, 
necessity of, 258; na- 
tional and imperial or- 
ganisation, 278; naval ex- 
pansion, 254-261; Navy 
Act of 1900, 280; Navy 
in 1914, 280-283; need 
of strong navy, 8; raids 
on seacoast towns, 313- 
314, 316; sources of food 
supply, 9; statecraft, 
principles tmderlying, 
281 ; first submarine cam- 
paign, failure of, 337, 
338, 353 

Germany, 4; as a self-support- 
ing country, 296, 298; 
Colonial Empire of, 78; 
first great naval power of 
Europe, 79 

Ghent, Peace of, 219 



Gibraltar, 105, 165, 186; captured 
by Sir George Rooke, 
158 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 120, 138 

Glasgow, the, in action, 301 

Gloucester, the, in action, 300 

Gneisenau, the, in action, 299, 300, 
301, 304, 305 

Gceben, the, 262, 291, 299, 300, 
330 

Golden Hind, the, 122-124 

Goliath, the, in action, 200 

Goltz, Admiral von der, 261, 286 

Gondemar, 138 

Good Hope, the, in action, 301, 
302 

Goschen, Sir Edward, interview 
with Bethmann-HoUweg, 
281 

Grand Fleet, i, 295 

Great Britain, 4, 17; advantages 
of, in struggle for sea 
power, 248 ; alliance with 
Japan, 264; alliance of, 
with Portugal, 113; effect 
of entry into the war, 287 
-291 ; growth of, as a mar- 
itime State, 4; not a self- 
supporting country, 298; 
position of, in Mediter- 
ranean, 168, 169; posses- 
sions in hands of, at the 
Peace of 181 5, 220 

Greece, 4, 17; independence of, 
recognised, 232; invaded 
by Mahomet II., 100 

Greek colonists, 14, 29, 30, 32; 
Empire, fall of, 99; fleet, 
action with Persian, 33, 

34 
Grenville, Sir Richard, 135 



H 



Hadrian, 51 

Hague Conference, 270; Conven- 
tions, 286, 335 

Halcyon, the, British gunboat, 313 

Hampden, John, refusal to con- 
tribute to maintenance 
of Navy, 142 

Hannibal, 27, 39, 40 

Hanno, expedition of, 42 

Hanoverian succession secured to 
England, 163 



INDEX 



365 



Hansa, see Hanseatic League 

Hanseatic League, 76-79, 137; 
conflict with Danes, 77; 
conflict with English, 
78; effect of, on British 
sea power, 80; expulsion 
from England, 78; politi- 
cal constitution of, 80; 
towns of the, 76 

Hapsburgs, the, 279; alliance with 
Britain, 192 

Hartlepools, German raid on the, 

313 
Hasdrubal, 39, 40 
Hawke, Admiral Lord, 48, 49, 

133, 326 
Hawke, 174, 176, 179, 181 
Hawkyns, Admiral, expeditions of , 

120, 128, 136 
Heligoland, Bight of, 295, 310, 

320, 323, 327, 333, 350; 

island of, 214, 310, 

316; possessed by Great 

Britain, 220 
Hellenes, separatist tendencies of, 

29, 31, 33 
Henry V., 67, 68; invasion of 

France by (1415), 70 
Henry Vn., Navy under, 80 
Henry VIII., broke with Rome, 

108, 115; Navy under, 

80-84, 141 
Hermes, the, in action, 334 
Highflyer, the, in action, 307 
Himilco, expeditions led by, 42, 

43, 45 

Hindenburg, the, German battle- 
cruiser, 259 

Hittites, power of, broken by 
Assyrians, 23 

Hague, the, in action, 334 

HohenzoUerns, the, 278; alliance 
with Britain, 192 

Holbrook, Commander, V.C., tor- 
pedoing of Messudyeh, 

333' 
Holland, 3, 9; as a Sea Power, 4, 
143, 144; in alliance with 
England and France, 
163 : in conflict with Eng- 
land, 145-152 
Hollman, Admiral von, 259 
Holy Alliance, 230, 234, 277-279 
Holy Island, lerne or Irelandj, 43 
Home Fleet, 271-273 



Hong-Kong taken and held by 
Great Britain, 221 

Hood, Admiral Lord, 186, 187, 
194 

Hood, Admiral the Hon. Horace, 

317-319 
Hospital ships, 339 
Hotham, British fleet under, 196, 

197 
Howard, Lord Thomas, 126-129, 

, 133, 136 
Howard, Sir Edward, 82 
Howe, 324; commanding British 

fleet, 196 



Ibrahim Pasha, 232 

Indefatigable, British battle-cruis- 
er, 318 

India, France's possessions in, 
166; foundation of Brit- 
ish Empire in, 178; in 
relation to British foreign 
policy, 242; Portuguese 
expedition to, 1 1 1 ; search 
for N.-W. and N.-E. 
passages to, 118, 119 

Indomitable, the, British battle- 
cruiser, 273, 317 

Inflexible, the British battle- 
cruiser, 273 , 304, 305 , 3 1 7 

Intelligence Department of the 
Admiralty, 299 

Invincible, the British battle-crui- 
ser, 273, 304, 305, 314, 

317,318 
Ionian Islands, 220 
Italian Front, extent of, 293 
Italy, as German food source, 
9; alliance with the Te- 
deschi, 279; in relation to 
the Central League, 279; 
neutrality. Declaration 
of, 300; Peninsula of, 
106, 169 



Jamaica, geographical position of, 

222 
James L, King of England, 138, 

139; decline of trade 

under, 139; Navy under, 

139 



366 



INDEX 



Japan, 3, 31; alliance with Great 
Britain, 264; naval mis- 
sion to, 263; war with 
China, 263; war with 
Russia, 264, 265 

Japanese, naval strength against 
Russians, 264-267; Navy, 
growth of, 262; Navy- 
transports Russian 
troops, 289, 290 

Jellicoe, Admiral Sir John, 295, 
318, 323. 324, 326, 329, 
340 

Judith, the, one of Drake's ships, 
121 

Julius Caesar, defeats the Britains, 
48, 49; lands in Britain, 
50 

Jutland Bank, Battle of, 313, 315, 
317-322, 324, 329 



K 



Kaiser class, 320 

Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, 262, 283, 
310 

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Ger- 
man auxiliary cruiser, 

307 
Kamimura, Admiral, 268 
Karlsruhe, the, German light 

crtdser, 299, 307 
Kasuga, the, Japanese armoured 

cruiser, 265, 268 
Kempenfeldt, Admiral, 186, 188, 

190 
Kent, German raids on coast of, 

340 
Kent, the, in action, 304, 305 
Keppel attacks French fleet, 189 
Kiao-chau leased by China to 

Germany, 265 
Kiel, 64, 235, &82, 283, 310, 

312 
Koln, the, German cruiser, 295 
Konigin Luise, the, German mine- 
layer, 286 
Konigsherg, German light cruiser, 

299. 307 

Koweit, possession of, by British, 
221 

Kronprinz PFi/fee/w, German auxili- 
ary cruiser, 307 

Kronprinzessin Cecilie^ German 
liner, 287 



Kultur, German, 278 
Kut, Turkish flank turned at, 
294 



Lafayette proposed a Declaration 
of the Rights of Man, 
commanded the National 
Guard, 191 

La Gallissoniere, 176 

La Gloire, 250 

La Hogue, victory of, 156 

La Rochelle, attempt to relieve, 
140-141; Battle of, 75 

Latouche-Tr^ville, Admiral, off 
Cadiz, 204; off Toulon, 

325-327 
Law of Nations, the first, 25, 

165 
Le Roi Soleil, 157, 162 
Leipsic, "Battle of the Nations" 

at, 216 
Leipsic, German light cruiser, 

299. 304, 307 
Lepanto, battle of, 103-104 
Levant, 1 1 ; trade with, 168 
Libanus, ranges of, 12, 23 
Lion, battle-cruiser, 315, 317; the 

first, 126 
Lisbon, expedition against, 214 
Lissa, battle of, 250 
LOrient, French flagship, 197- 

200 
Louis XIV. of France, 6, 152, 162, 

277; France under, 152- 

156, 159; relations with 

Charles II., 147 
Louis XV. of France, navy under, 

179-181 
Louis XVI. of France, murder of, 

191 
Louis the Dauphin, 67-68 
Low Countries, independence of, 

191? I93» 282 {see also 

Netherlands) 
Lowestoft, German naval raid on, 

316 
Lubeck, town of the Hanseatic 

League, 76, 77 
Lun^ville, Treaty of, 202 
Lusitania, sinking of the, 337 
Lutzow, German battle-cruiser, 

320 



INDEX 



367 



M 

Macedonia, the, 304, 306 

Macedonian Empire, 39 

Madrid, occupation of, by Napo- 
leon, 213 

Magellan, no, 120; Straits of, 
122-123 

Mahan, Capt. A. T., importance 
of works of, 254-256 g 

Mahomet II., conquests of, 99, 
100 

Mainz, German cruiser, 295 

Malay States, Federated, develop- 
ment of, 221 

Malta, 220; blockade and fall of, 
201 

Manila Bay, 238 

Marathon, battle of, 32, 33 

Marco Polo, no 

Mardonius, 32, 33, 35 

Marengo, campaign of, 202 

Marie Antoinette, murder of, 191 

Marines, Royal Regiment of, 131 

Maritime expedition, earliest re- 
corded, 22 

Marlborough, Duke of, 158-159 

Marmora, Sea of, 334 

Matthews, Admiral, 173 

Mauritius, 220 

Meander, the, 226 

Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 127 

Mediterranean, as centre of the 
Ancient World, 19; en- 
gagements fought in, 
146; evacuation of, 198; 
importance of, to Great 
Britain, 168; importance 
of, in relation to sea 
power, 106; position of 
Great Britain in, 168; 
races, first contact with 
Britons, 44 

Mediterranean fleet, 271-272 

Merchant fleet, functions of, 9 

Merrimac, the, 250 

Mesopotamia, 288 

Messudyeh torpeoed, 334 

Military navy, 2, 7, 8, 18; func- 
tions of, 9 ; German neces- 
sity of, 258 

Minorca, 186, 188 

Missiessy, Admiral, 207 

Mobilisation of the British Navy, 
285 



Moltke, the, 314 

Monastir, 289 

Monmouth, British cruiser, 301-302 

Monroe Doctrine, 238 

Montenegrins, loss of Mount 
Lovtcha, 331 

Moore, Sir John, 213 

Morocco, 271, 275 

Mount Lovtcha lost by Montene- 
grins, 331 

Mowe, 308 

Mukden, Battle of, 269 

Mycale, Greek victory at, 35 



N 



Naniwa, the, 263 

Napoleon, attempt to invade Asia 
Minor, 28; campaigns, 
199, 213, 217; "con- 
tinental system," 192, 
218; first contact with 
sea power, 194; Order in 
Council against, 296; 
sea communications de- 
stroyed, 200; strategies, 
192; victories, 192, 198 

Nasmjrth, Commander, 334 ] 

Natal made a British possession, 
221 

National Debt, 182 

Naval Defence Act, 253 

Naval defence, British system of, 
205, 273; principles of, 
136 
warfare, early methods of, 49; 
policy of Elizabethan, 
136-138 

Navarino, Battle of, 232 

Navarre, Henry of, 135 

Navigation Acts, 145, 150, 154 
Laws, 352 

Navy Acts, German, 259, 261; 
Dutch compared with 
English, 151; Elizabeth- 
an, 130-132 

Navy, first Controller of, 81 
Importance of, as first line of 

defence, 68 
League, 259 
neglect of, under George I., 

171 
imder Henry VII. and Henry 

VIII., 80-84 
under the Stuarts, 139-141 



368 



INDEX 



Navy Office, German, 259; initi- 
ation of, 81 

Nelson, Lord, 28, 130, 197, 199, 
322, 325-328; tactics of, 
209; victories of, 193 

Netherlands, revolt of, against 
Spain, 117, 134, 169, 173, 
179 

Neutrals, German proclamation 
to, 339; rights of, 295- 
297; sinking, 337 

Newfovindland, British claim to, 
151, 160; discovery of, 
119; fisheries, 138 

New South Wales formally an- 
nexed to the British 
Crown, 220 

New Zealand, 317; formally _ an- 
nexed to the British 
Crown, 220 

Nicias, 36 

Nile, II; Battle of the, 200-202 

Nisshin,the, 265, 268 

Norman power and influence in 
the West, 56 

Normans in conflict with Vene- 
tians, 90 

North Sea, 312, 330, 331 

Northmen, the, 51-56 

Niirnberg, German light cruiser, 
299» 304-307 



O 



OEstrytnnis, 43-44 

Orange, overthrow of House of, 

193 
Orkney Islands, 312 
Orleans, Duke of, 163-165 
Otranto, 301 
Ottoman Navy, 292 



Pan-Germanism, overthrow of 
Great Britain the goal 
of, 257-259, 279 
Pan-Slavism, 279 
Panther, German gunboat, 275 
Paris, Declaration of, 335 
Parma, Dtike of, 127 
Passaro, Cape, Battle of, 165 
Pathfinder sunk by German sub- 
marine, 334 
Peace of 18 15, 220 



Pegasus, British cruiser, sunk off 

Zanzibar, 307 
Pelican, Drake's flagship, 122 
Peloponnesian War, 35 
Peloponnesus under leadership 

of Sparta, 33 
Peloponnesus, coast of, 33, 35, 

37 
Peninsula of Italy, strategical 

importance of, 106 
Peninsular War, 192-216 
Pen j eh crisis, 253 
Penn captures Jamaica and Bar- 
bados, 147 
Perim, 222 

Persian Empire, conflict with Hel- 
lenic States, 31 
fleet, action with Greek fleet, 33 ; 

defeat of, 33 
Gulf, 19; sea power, 33 
Petrograd defended by the Grand 

Fleet, 330 
Pett, Phineas, ship designer, 138, 

140 
Pharaohs, the, 6, 21-23 
Philip II. of Spain, 240 {_see also 

Spain) 
Philippine Islands pass finally 

from Spain, 238 
Philpot, Sir John, 73-74 
Phoceans, the, 29, 31, 45 
Phoenicia, 4, 8, 17, 20; cause of 

fall of, 24 
Phoenician colonisation, 24, 29; 

conflicts with Greece, 

31; trade, 26 
Phoenicians as a seafaring people, 

6, 8, II, 13; the first Sea 

Power, 23 
Picts, march on London, 51; Wall 

of Hadrian built to keep 

out the, 51 
Pillars of Herakles, 19, 25, 26, 

104 
Piracy, suppression of, 225-227 
Plassey, Battle of, 178 
Pocock, Admiral, capture of 

Havana, 1 78-1 81 
Polish independence destroyed, 

279 
Port Arthur, 263-274, 310, 331; 

fall of, 269 
Port Mahon, 176, 189, 197 
Port of London, 139 
Port William, 305 



INDEX 



369 



Portsmouth, War College estab- 
lished at, 274 

Portugal, Britain as the ally of, 
114, 157, 282; as a Sea 
Power, 112; fall of, 112- 
114; pioneer of discovery, 
1 1 o- 1 1 2 ; treaty with, 184 

Portuguese Empire, range of, 1 10- 
112 
mercantile marine, 114 
trade with Great Britain, 1 14 
War Navy, 114 

Power, Balance of, 282 

Princess Mary, British battle- 
cruiser, 317 

Princess Royal, British battle- 
cruiser, 315, 317 

Prinz Eitel Friedrich, German 
auxiliary cruiser, 307 

Protestantism, Queen Elizabeth 
as protector of, 134 

Prussia, domination of, in Ger- 
many, 344 

Ptolemies, overthrow of, 40 

Punic Wars, 38, 42 

Pytheas, explorations of, 44-46 



Q 



Quebec taken by Wolfe, 178 
Queen Elizabeth class, 317-318 
Queen Elizabeth of England {see 

Elizabeth) 
Quiberon Bay, Hawke's victory 

in, 48, 133, 173, 180, 

323; the Veneti and their 

allies in, 50 



R 



Raids, German naval, on British 
sea coast towns, 313-314, 

Raleigh, Sir Walter, expedition 
against Cadiz, 136; at- 
tempt to colonise Vir- 
ginia, 138 

Ram, the, in naval warfare, 250- 

251 
Re d'ltalia, Italian flagship, 250 
Redoubtable, French ship of the 

line, 211 
Reformation, the, 109; rupture of 

relations with Rome, 115 



Reichstag, and German naval 

expendittire, 259, 261 
Renascence, the, 109 
Restoration, Wars of the, 147 
Revenge, Drake's flagship, 126, 135 
Reventlow, Count von, on sub- 
marine warfare, 337 
Rhe, Isle of, expedition to, 140- 

141 

Richelieu, Cardinal, and the 
French Navy, 140 

Richelieu, Due de, expedition 
against Port Mahon, 176 

Riga, German operations against, 
294, 330 

Right of Conquest, 12 

Rodney, Admiral, 324; attack 
against the Spanish, 189; 
expedition against St. 
Kitts, 188; reHef of 
Gibraltar, 186 

Rojdestvensky, Admiral, com- 
mand of the Baltic Fleet 
against Japan, 266-269, 
271 

RoUo, or Rolf Ganger, invasion of 
France and settlement in 
Normandy, 55-56 

Roman conquest of Hellas, 40; 
occupation of Britain, 

50 . 

names, survival of, in Britain, 

59 

Romano-British, survival of, 59- 
60 

Romans, the, as an agricultural 
and military people, 47; 
defeat Britons by sea, 
48-49 

Rome, conflict with Carthage, 
39; supremacy of, 39 

Roumania, approach to, through 
the Dardanelles, 3; as a 
source of supply to Ger- 
many, 8 

Royal Naval Reserve, 286 

Royal Navy, existence in pre- 
Tudor times, 73; in the 
time of Queen Elizabeth, 
126; decline of, after 
peace with Spain, 139; 
introduction of steam 
power into, 249 

Royal Sovereign, Collingwood's 
flagship, 210, 211 



370 



INDEX 



"Rule of 1756, " basis of Orders in 
Council and Prize Court 
Regulations, 183; re-im- 
posed by Great Britain, 
204; resisted by the 
Dutch, 186 

Russia, as a source of supply to 
Germany, 8, 336; friction 
with, as result of Dogger 
Bank incident, 269; sea 
power of, in relation to 
geographical conditions, 

3 

Russian fleet, 311, 312; and the 
Baltic, 329-331; com- 
pared with Japanese fleet, 
64, 264-267 
Revolution, 330 

troops transported by Japan- 
ese Navy, 289 
Russo-Japanese War, 265-267 ; Ad- 
miral Togo's strategy in, 

309 
Ruyter, Admiral de, as a great 

commander, 1 52 ; leads 

the Dutch fleet against 

England, 149 
Ryswick, Peace of, 157 



Sadowa, 277 

St. Jean d'Acre, bombardment of, 

232 
St. Vincent, Battle of, 198 
Salamis, 332; sea battle of, 34, 

36 
Salisbury, Lord, 282 
Salonika, 288, 294 
Santa Cruz, 127 
Santa Lucia in British possession, 

220 
Sarawak, State of, 226 
Saumarez, action off Algeciras, 

324 

Saxons, invade Britain, 51, 57 

Scapa Flow, 222, 312 

Scarborough, German naval raid 
on, 313 

Scharnhorst, the, German cruiser, 
262, 299, 300, 301, 305 

Scheldt, 186, 191 

Schleswig and Holstein, annexa- 
tion of, to Prussia, 235 

Scipio, 40 



Scott, Sir Percy, gunnery of fleet 
revolutionised by, 273; 
on submarine warfare, 

334 
Scutari taken by Turks, loi 
Sea communications, 8, 17; im- 
portance of, to Venice, 

93, 95 

Seafaring peoples, 5; early, 8; of 
the North, 45 ; the Veneti 
as, 47, 49 

Sea fight, earliest recorded, 22 ; in 
which Britons took part, 
48,49 

Sea frontiers, vulnerability of, 63 

Sea power, advantages of Great 
Britain in struggle for, 
248; beginnings of Eng- 
lish, 67; conditions of, 
2, 3; definition of, 2; 
economic advantages of, 
297; effect of Hanseatic 
League on British, 79; 
effect of, on War of 
Spanish Succession, 159; 
essentials for effective, 
143; during Civil War in 
United States, 236; fac- 
tors of, 2, 5, 254; in 
relation to continental 
nations, 16; of ancient 
world, 20-22 ; of Greeks, 
29; of Persians, 32; of 
Phoenicians, 23 ; supreme, 
held by England, 161; 
the basis of freedom, 
346-347; the key to 
Egypt, 28; under Eliza- 
beth, 135; value of, for 
transportation of troops, 
287, 288 

Sea Powers, great, 4 

Sea routes, control of, 222 

Sebastopol, siege of, 332 

Sedan, 277 

Seeadler, the, havoc caused by, 
308 

Serbia, rescue of, by sea power, 
16 

Serbian Army, beaten and re- 
equipped, 289 

Seven Years' War, 182, 183 

Sexennate, the, 259 

Seydlitz, German battle-cruiser, 
315,320,321 



INDEX 



371 



Shamrock III., the, 284 

Shell gun, changes wrought by 
introduction of, 250-253 

Ship-money fleets, 140; instituted 
by Charles I., 142 

Sidon, meaning of name, 24 

Siegfried, the, German coast- 
defence vessel, 259 

Singapore purchased by the Brit- 
ish, 221 

Skager Rak, 311, 312, 317 

Skiemevice, Imperial meeting at, 
279 

Slav ambitions, antagonism with 
German, 279 

Slave trade, 225, 246 

Sluys, Battle of, 69 

Smith, Sir Sidney, exploits of, 
200, 217 

Socotra, British possession of, 221 

Somaliland, earUest recorded mari- 
time expedition to, 22 

Soudan, 233, 244; recovery from 
barbarism, 221 

South Africa, Union of, 242 

Spain, alUance with France, 163, 
165; conflict between 
England and, 125; Fer- 
dinand and Isabella of, 

108, 109; geographical 
position of, 3; overrun 
by Carthaginians, 38-40; 
Philip II. of , 102, 124-127, 
136; peace with England, 
138; relations of, with 
France, 163, 165; revival 
of, 8, 16; sea power of, 
114, 115; unification of, 

109, 115; war with 
United States (1898), 

237 . 
Spamsh — colomes of Phoenicia, 
25; Main, 121-123, 128, 
131, 136, 137; monarchy, 
subjects of, 6; Succession, 
War of the, 157, 159, 
160, 163 ; leads to present 
struggle, 161 
Spee, Admiral von, commands 
German squadron, 301- 
306 
Stamp Act, resistance to, 184 
Staples, establishment of, 72 
Steam power, introduction of, 
into Royal Navy, 250 



Steel shipbuilding, changes 
wrought by introduction 
of, 250-253; development 
of, 249 

Straits of Gibraltar, ancient boun- 
dary of habitable world, 
19 

Straits Settlements, development 
of, 221 

Stralsund, Peace of, 78 

Strategic principles, of Lord Nel- 
son, 327-328; naval of 
Great Britain, 275 

Sturdee, Admiral Sir John, action 
oflE Falkland Islands, 304 
-305 

Sualdm, possession of, by British, 
221 

Submarine — campaign, failure of 
first German, 336, 338; 
evolution of the, 333 ; the, 
in relation to sea power, 
351 ; telegraphy, develop- 
ment of, 221; uses of, 
333» 335; warfare, al- 
leged German reprisal, 
337; imderlying factors 
of, 346-349 

Suez Canal, position of, 168 

Sugar supply, stopped by sub- 
marine campaign, 349 

Sussex, sinking of the, 337 

Swan, the, one of Drake's ships, 
121 

Swiftsure, the first, 126 

Sydney, the, AustraUan cruiser, 307 

Syracuse, 36 

Syria, II, 23; conquered by Alex- 
ander, 27 



Tarshish, 25 

Telegraphy, submarine, develop- 
ment of, 221 

Tel-el-Kebir, 233 

Territorial troops replace Regular 
Army, 286; waters, 2 

Themistocles, 33, 35, 100 

Tiger, the, 315, 317; the first, 126 

Tigris, II, 20 

Tirpitz, Admiral von, 259, 260; 
in submarine warfare, 
335. 337; programme for 
ship-building, 261 



372 



INDEX 



Tobago, 220 

Togo, Admiral, 263, 267, 309, 
310 

Torpedo, addition of, to vessels, 
309; automobile, 252; 
base, Heligoland as a, 310 

Torpedo-boat destroyer, develop- 
ment of, 252 

Torres Vedras, 216 

Torrington defeated oflE Beachy 
Head, 156 
Lord, 165 

Toulon, 173, 194, 325-328 

Trade, advance of British, during 
Napoleonic wars, 201, 
211; British, with Spain, 
170; colonial, in relation 
to Mother Country, 183; 
decline of, under James I., 
140; England struggles 
to enlarge her, 168; 
French, 183; loss of Brit- 
ish, during Seven Years' 
War, 182, 183; militates 
against power of Navy 
under George I., 171 

Trafalgar, 92, 322, 327; Battle of 
208-211; effect of battle 
of, 211 

Transport, early methods of, 11; 
importance of, 10; of 
troops, 309 

Trans-Siberian Railway, 265 

Trebizond, fall of, 329 

Trinidad, 220 

Trinity House, fotmdation of, 81 

Triple Alliance, 279 

Tripoli, Turkish possessions in, 
attacked by Italy, 276 

Triumph, the first, 126 

Tromp, Admiral, exploits of, 

145, 152 
Troops, safe transport of, 309 
Tsessarevitch, the, interned at 

Shanghai, 266 
Tsu-shima, Battle of, 267 
Tudors, the Navy under the, 141 
Turin, Peace of (1382), 98 
Turkey, alliance with Germany 

and Austria, 291; war 

with Balkan States, 279 
Company, 137 
Turkish Empire in Middle Ages, 

85, 86; front, extent of, 

293; navy, 292 



Turks, advance of, in Europe, 
98, 103; allied campaign 
against (1821), 231; as 
a great naval Power, 100; 
defeat of, by Venetians 
and Spanish, 104; in 
conflict with Venetians, 

99 

Two Power Standard, 140 
Tyre, 23, 25, 26, 39, 98; fall of, 
28; King Hiram of, 23 



U 



U-boat warfare, 317, 338, 339, 
348-351; unrestricted, 

297, 339, 341 
Ulm, 208, 211 
Union of South Africa, 242 
United States, 161 ; as a Sea Power, 
4; restrictions on sub- 
marine warfare, 337-339 ; 
war with Spain (1898), 

237 
Utrecht, Treaty of, 160, 162, 225 



Vasco da Gama, 106, no 

Venice, 4, 17; as a naval State, 
87; as safeguard of the 
West, 87, 91, 98;attacked 
by Charlemagne, 87 ; 
breach with Empire of 
the East, 96; cause of 
fall of, 24; decline of, 
98, 102, 106; foundation 
of, 86; in alliance with 
other European Powers, 
ID I, 102; sea power of, 
causes of decline of, 105- 
107; struggles of, with 
Genoa, for mastery of 
the sea, 98 

Veneti, Julius Caesar defeats, the, 
48-50 

Venetian alliance with Hungary 
against Normans, 93, 
94; colonists, 14, 94; 
conquests on land, 97; 
navy and the Crusades, 
89 ; trade, development 
of, 88 



INDEX 



^7: 



Venetians in conflict with Nor- 
mans, 89; with Turks, 
98-101; war-navy estab- 
lished by, 87 

Vera Cruz, 199 

Vespucci, Amerigo, no 

Victoria, the, 120, 251 

Victoria and Albert, the, 284 

Victory, the, 203 

Viking Age, the, 50 

Villafranca, Treaty of, 234 

Villaret-Joyeuse, Admiral, 195 

Ville de Paris, the, 188 

Villeneuve, 204, 208, 323 

Vladivostok, 267, 289 

Von der Tann, the, 315 

W 



Wagram, Battle of, 193, 214 
Waingari, Treaty of, 221 
Waldemar IV., King, conflict with 

Hanseatic League, 77 
Wales, descendants of Britons in, 

58,60 
Walfisch Bay, 221 
Wall of Hadrian, 51 
Walpole, Robert, 166, 171; fall of, 

171 
Walsingham, letters from Drake, 

127 
Walton, Captain, 165 
Wapping, 119 

War, declaration of, 286; of Jen- 
kins's Ear, 161, 170-171; 

of 1812, 192 
College at Portsmouth estab- 
lished, 274 
navy established by Henry V., 

71 ; in Venice, 87 
staff appointed by Admiralty, 

274 
Warrender, Admiral Sir George, 

at reopening of Kiel 

Canal, 283 
Warrior, cruiser, 317; sinks, 319 
Wars of the Roses, 5, 80 
War spite, the, 126 
Waterloo, 15, 104, 192 
Wedmore, Treaty of, 53 
Wei-hai-wei, 221; acquired by 

Britain, 264 
Wellesley, Sir Arthur, expedition 

against Lisbon, 213 



Wellington, Duke of, his strategy, 
71; success in Peninsula, 
216, 218, 294 

Weser, 310 

West Africa, 244 

West Indies, islands, 150, 158, 
166, 171, 174, 180, 181, 
186, 187-190, 194, 196, 
206, 229 

Western Front, extent of, 293 

Western Mediterranean, 37 

Western Powers, Constantinople 
in hands of, 96; Vene- 
tians fall from headship 
of, 103 

Westminster, 171 

Whitby, German naval raid on, 

313 

White Empire, oversea, 241 
Wilberforce, the elder, abolition of 

slavery, 225 
Wilhelm II., accession to throne of 

Germany, 256-259, 262 
Wilhelmshaven, completion of 

works, 262, 310; distance 

from FlamboroughHead, 

312, 320 
William, Frederick, of Prussia, 

214 
William of Normandy, invasion of 

England, 65, 66; becomes 

King, 65 ; descendants, 

66; growth of sea power 

under, 65; remnant of 

Duchy, 120, 152 
William P. Frye, American sailing 

ship, 336 
William, Port, 305 
Willoughby, Sir Hugh, search for 

N.-E. Passage to India, 

119 
Wimereux, 204 
Winchelsea, 70; one of Cinque 

Ports, 72 
Winchester, Venta Belgarum, 59 
"Wineland the Good," identified 

with Labrador, 50 
Wisby, 78 

Wolfe, taking of Quebec, 178 
Wolseley, Sir Garnet, 233 
World, New — cultivation in, 153; 

Spanish sovereignty, 1 57 ; 

English-speaking nation, 

220, 225 
Wotan, German worship of, 277 



374 



INDEX 



X 



Xerxes, 14, 31, 34, 85, 98, 277, 
343 



Yalu River, 263 

Yarmouth, German naval raid, 

3i3» 316 
Yezo, 267 
Yorck, 313 



Yorktown, surrender of Corn- 

wallis in, 187 
Young Pretender, 174 
Yser, inundations, 63 
Yukon, 120 



Zama, campaign of, 40 
Zanzibar, 307 
Zeebrugge, 340 
Zeppelin airships, 310 



A Selection from the 
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Belgium: 

Neutral and Loyal 

The War of 1914 

By 
Emile Waxweiler 

Director of the Solvay Institute of Sociology at Brussels, 
Member of the Academic Royale of Belgium 

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In order to clarify opinion and to correct 
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common sense. There are five chapters, with 
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With calm, dispassionate judgment, he up- 
holds Belgium's right to oppose the violation 
of her territory by Germany, citing with tell- 
ing force the Treaty of 1839, and subsequent 
events of international importance, such as 
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threatened French aggression in 1848. 



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This volume of accounts, collected 
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through which the Belgian army passed 
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G. P. Putnam's Sons 

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